4834 Fishes. 



" I marked," says Mr. Young, " a number of smolts on their way to 

 the sea, and continued this process for several summers, but yearly 

 changed the mark from one part of the fish to another. This marking 

 was done particularly for the purpose of ascertaining the exact time 

 that the smolt was absent from the river until it returned a grilse ; 

 because it was the opinion of some, and some even assert it yet, that 

 smolts are a whole year in the sea before their return ; but if they 

 were a year they must be more — they must have been fourteen months. 

 However, without marking them at all, we are certain that salmon in 

 no stage of their migrations remain that time absent from the rivers. 

 What I marked was in April and May, and in course of June and 

 July following we caught several of them with the same marks, grilses 

 varying from three to eight pounds, but did not catch in the following 

 year a grilse with the smolt-mark of the previous year. And, although 

 I continued marking and searching for them on their return, the result 

 was invariably the same. And, from these expeiiments and the 

 length of time the marked smolts were absent, I am of the decided 

 opinion that the great majority of them remain away only about two 

 months." 



But the duration of the smolts 1 absence at the sea -before returning 

 as grilses is not the point which has been principally debated in this 

 locality. Our controversy has been chiefly upon a point far antecedent 

 to this. Our readers will remember, that after having successfully 

 reared some 200,000 or 300,000 young fish, it was, in the early part of 

 May last, keenly discussed — what we were to make of them ; whether 

 they were to be allowed, at the end of the first year, after hatching, to 

 seek their way to the sea ; or whether they should be detained in the 

 ponds until the end of the second. Upon this point the authorities 

 were quite at variance. Mr. Wilson, of Edinburgh, and Mr. Shaw, of 

 Drumlanrig, after visiting the ponds, pronounced for a two years' 

 nursing, while Mr. Young, of Invershin, who had never seen them, but, 

 basing his opinion upon the result of his own experience elsewhere, 

 was equally decided in favour of only one. The balance of authority 

 seemed to be against Mr. Young, and at one time, we believe, it was 

 resolved to confine the whole stock till May next year. A week or 

 two's further experience and observation, however, speedily turned the 

 scale against the two-year theory. The rapid growth of the fry, the 

 large proportion which immediately progressed into indisputable 

 smolts, and the striking evidences which the larger inhabitants of the 

 ponds themselves clearly manifested that the time of migration had 



