DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF SALMON-FRY. 549 



I concluded to be the young parr, or samlet of the season. To prove the fact, I 

 scooped up with a gauze-net two or three dozen of them, on the 15th of May 1834. 

 They measured about an inch in length ; then- heads were large in proportion to 

 then- bodies, and the latter tapered off toward the tail, in the form of a wedge. 

 The small transverse bars, characteristic of the parr, were already distinctly 

 marked. I placed them in two ponds, each provided with a run of water, where 

 they throve well. In the course of the succeeding May (1835), that is, when they 

 were more than a year old, and had been twelve months in my possession, I took 

 a few of them from the pond for the purpose of examination. They had increased 

 to the length of 3^ inches, on an average, and it is important to remark, that they 

 corresponded in every respect with the parr of the same age which occurred, in 

 the river ; but neither as yet indicated any approach to the silvery aspect of the 

 smolt. Being satisfied, however, from the result of my former experiments on 

 the parr, that they would ultimately assume that silvery aspect, I continued to 

 detain them in the pond, and, accordingly, in May 1836, they were transmuted 

 into smolts or salmon-fry, commonly so called. At this time they measured 6^ 

 inches in length, their colour on the back a beautiful deep blue, the sides bright 

 and silvery, the dorsal, caudal, and especially the pectoral fins, tipt with black, 

 the abdomen, ventral, and anal fins, white. The undoubted smolts of the 7'iver 

 were at this time descending sea-wards, and the most careful comparison of these 

 with those in my possession did not ehcit the slightest difference between the two. 

 Mine had completed their second year, and is it likely that those in the river 

 which so identically resembled them, were only a few weeks old ? 



The minute but active fish above alluded to, is at that early period to be no 

 where found except in those streams (or their immediate vicinity) in which the 

 old salmon had deposited their spawn during the preceding winter. Early in 

 April 1835, I discovered them in one of these streams, but so young and weak, 

 owing to their very recent emergence from the spawning-bed, as to be unable to 

 struggle with the current where it flowed with any strength or rapidity. They 

 therefore betook themselves to the gentler eddies, and frequently into the small 

 hollows produced in the shingle by the hoofs of horses which had passed the ford. 

 In these comparatively quiet places, and covered by a slight current of a few inches 

 in depth, they continued with their little tails in constant motion, tiU such time 

 as my near approach was perceived, when they immediately darted beneath the 

 stones. They remain with these habits, and in the situations just mentioned, 

 during the months of April, May, and even June ; but as they increase in size and 

 strength, they scatter themselves all over the shallower parts of the river, espe- 

 cially wherever the bottom is composed of fine gravel. They continue, in truth, 

 comparatively unobserved throughout the whole of the first summer, being sel- 

 dom taken by the angler during that season. But when the two-year-olds have 

 disappeared (as smolts) in spring, these smaller fishes, now entering their second 



