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SALMON. 
it cannot be said their very young condition, they are said to 
have aspired to pair with a full-grown female for the continuance 
of the race; a Parr of five or six inches in length producing 
so much of the milt as will render fertile a quantity of roe 
that is more than equal to the bulk of its own body. It is 
known indeed, or believed, that some of these Salmon Parrs, at 
least in the north, will remain in fresh water through the summer, 
while others of the same brood have emigrated; but the causes 
of this are still undetermined. It is, however, an established 
fact that when confined within a narrow range, the growth of 
fishes generally will be stinted to the dimensions of their dwellings; 
and it is further certain that every unnatural condition has an 
influence on their development, and perhaps more especially on 
those of the Salmon family; which circumstance may go far to 
account for some remarkable changes of structure and deficiencies 
that we shall have to point out in the history of the Trout. 
We hesitate, therefore, at present to adopt the conclusions 
which appear to prevail on this subject, as if they were of 
universal application; and we may be excused the rather for 
these doubts, since some attentive observers of the experiments 
on which these conclusions have been built, have shewn a 
remarkable aptitude in changing their opinions on apparently 
insufficient grounds, and several of the experiments which have 
been prominently put forward are pronounced by others as 
eminently mistaken or inconclusive. 
As illustrative of these remarks, some young Salmon were 
kept in a fresh-water lake in Norway for five years, and so 
much was their growth stunted by this confinement, that at the 
end of that time each one weighed only one pound and three 
quarters. Placed in a large lake after a few years some of them 
grew to weigh three pounds and a half, and others five pounds. 
Sea Trout similarly kept were of still slower growth. Mr. 
Brown, to whom reference will again be made, makes some 
mention of a young Salmon which remained in the fishpond 
for five years, of which three had passed before it had acquired 
the shining scales; but he does not assign any cause for this 
delay, nor does there any appear in the case of a Trout, 
presently to be mentioned, except the single fact of confinement 
within a very limited space. 
It is curious that the habits of the Salmon while at sea are 
