AS OBSERVED IN SCOTLAND. 



139 



them a small yellowish matter, collected near the back-bone, which he 

 maintained was an incipient roe, although no more resembling it than 

 the moon does a man's face. He likewise assured us of a fact, 

 which during the experience of thirty years he had carefully noted, but 

 whether worthy of credit or not we ourselves are unable to discern, 

 namely, that the par in Clyde every fifth year are both fewer and much 

 larger than they are in the other four. If this is the case, it proves 

 nothing, but still it is singular ; and no doubt every angler must have 

 observed in most rivers, that one season often presents him with different 

 sized fish from those of another, and that they are few or numerous, 

 according to their size. 



But leaving the mulists as sufficiently handled, we proceed to the 

 opinion held by some, and by the author of an article in the Edinburgh 

 Encyclopaedia, that par are the males of the sea-trout, whitling, or 

 finnock. This theory is at once overturned by the well-known fact, 

 that these fish have the tail straight, or nearly so, while the par and 

 salmon have theirs fully and beautifully forked. But supposing, as we 

 grant it possible, that the growth of the fish changed in some measure 

 the appearance of that appendage, still we are by no means at a loss 

 for another argument, to be taken from open and conclusive facts, 

 which readily exposes the error of this opinion. In the Rochil, a 

 respectable stream, which joins the Earn, opposite to Comrie, in Perth- 

 shire, there are few par, except in the lowermost parts, where they 

 are pretty abundant during the summer months. Two or three miles 

 up, above a point where salmon generally halt, owing both to the 

 uncertainty of the floods, and likewise to the interruption of a small 

 but ill-assorted waterfall, in overcoming which a large fish runs the 

 risk of falling either among bare rocks or shallows, par are seldom or 

 never caught ; and yet the sea-trout and whitlings run up without 

 danger, and spawn in immense numbers many miles on, through the 

 whole extent of Glenartney; nay, it is well known throughout Perth- 

 shire, that the Rochil is the best stream in the whole county for these 

 fish, and that a dozen or more, averaging three pounds weight each, 

 may be taken by a single rod among the highest pools in a proper 

 season. If, then, par are the males of the sea-trout and whitling, or 

 mules- between them and the common trout, of which there are vast 

 quantities in this stream, why are they not to be found among the 

 innumerable spawn-beds along its course? A few surely might remain 

 above as well as under the point alluded to ; and yet we ourselves have 

 never been able to capture one individual, although we have angled 



t 2 



