53 
and these experiments have been carried on to this 
time with the same results. A strange fact in con¬ 
nection with the parr is, that the male alone arrives 
at sexual maturity, and does or cam impregnate the 
ova of the adult female salmon. This experiment was 
fully tried at Stormontfield, where ova impregnated 
with the milt of the parr, was kept bj^ itself and in 
due time hatched. A most singular anomaly is 
exhibited in the varying time at which parrs become 
smolts, and migrate. In the breeding ponds, this has 
been always observed ; about-one half become smolts, 
and go off when one year old, and nearly the other 
half at two years old, the only difference being that 
the two-year-old parrs become smolts a week or two 
earlier in the season than the parrs of one-year-old— 
and even at two years old, a number remain parrs for 
another year. 
I have not heard any reasonable cause assigned for 
this difference. Some maintain that being better 
supplied with food and being kept in a state of com¬ 
parative confinement they have their growth hastened, 
and their instincts overruled ; others think that ova 
of adult salmon come sooner to maturity than the 
ova of grilses. However, I am not in a position to 
say which of these theories is correct, or if either of 
them be correct. I suspect the matter will have to 
rest as it is at present, undecided. After assuming 
the smolt dress the fishes become more restless, and 
gathering into flocks of sometimes as many as fifty or 
sixiy, they swim round the pond for a clay or two, 
and generally leave in shoals. 
Having got this length with our subject we must 
take farewell of our fishes for a while, as we do 
not see the change that takes place between the time 
they leave the pond as smolts, and return to the 
river as grilses. As we cannot any longer get direct 
evidence we must now have recourse to circum¬ 
stantial evidence, and so mark our fishes that we may 
be able to recognise them again. Of the smolts that 
left the pond, the first year, over 1000 were marked 
by cutting off the dead fin ; of these a good many 
returned to the river the same season as grilses of 
from 24 to 8 or 9 lbs. in weight. The following year 
