396 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess, 
The specimen (PL I.) now exhibited throws some light upon the 
question of rate of growth at the period between smolt and grilse. 
It is an Irish fish, and was taken on a small fly on 25th August 
of this year (1904). It was caught by Mr W. N. Milne when 
angling a quarter of a mile above tide reach in the river Galway. 
It was therefore taken at the season when grilse proper are 
commonly found to he several pounds in weight, and when, if the 
old observers were correct, the fish could not have weighed, as it 
does, only 15 \ ounces. It is more than a smolt, is evidently a 
quite young fish, and cannot fairly he called a grilse. It has 
attained, I believe, about a third of the growth of the grilse, as 
this stage is commonly recognised, and requires another year of 
sea feeding to accomplish the transition. I am not aware of any 
similar specimen existing in this country, if we except a few that 
have been artificially reared, and, as smolts, transferred to salt 
water aquaria or sea ponds. In this way Dahl in Norway has 
reared examples up to 31*5 cm. ; and recently in Scotland a 
sea pond at the mouth of the Spey, belonging to the Duke of 
Richmond and Gordon, has produced rather larger examples. I 
am able to show one of these, which is 33 cm., or almost the 
size of the Galway fish (PI. II.). 
I have heard of two occasions on which fish approaching the 
stage of the Galway fish have, in the wild state, been caught in 
Scotland. In. other cases which have been brought to my notice 
the identification is uncertain. A specimen weighing f pound was, 
Mr S. Gurney Buxton informs me, caught by him when spinning 
with natural sand eel in the Kyle of Tongue in 1886 ; and two 
fish, each weighing f pound, were reported to me by the late Mr 
Anderson, salmon tacksman in the Forth district, as having been 
taken by his father in 1863, he himself being present, in the Dundas 
net which used to he fished between Hopetoun and Queensferry. 
The fish were not preserved, or, so far as I can find, identified 
scientifically, hut the reports are, I consider, worthy of record, my 
informants being in each case men with long experience in salmon 
fishing. 
Dahl, in his valuable report of inquiries into the early stages of 
the sea trout and salmon, 1 refers to three young salmon which 
1 (Erret og UnglctJcs, Christiania, 1902. 
