SALMON TRIBE. 
497 
form to which they subsequently attain. They are indeed shapeless little 
monsters, more like tadpoles than fish, each furnished with a little hag of 
nutriment forming a portion of the abdomen. On this, for two or three weeks, 
they subsist, until it is absorbed, when they take the form of fishes. They are then 
about 1 inch in length, and are known as salmon-fry or samlets. A portion of 
the eggs are washed down the stream during the process of spawning, and become 
the prey of trout and other fish which attend the redds for the purpose of feeding 
on them. In this they do no harm whatever, for these eggs, being uncovered and 
unfecundated, could never arrive at maturity. The kippers, when not actually 
engaged in the spawning process, swim rapidly about the redd, fighting fiercely 
with one another. The use of the beak appears then to come into operation. 
Many authors erroneously describe this beak either as a weapon of offence, or as 
a sort of pickaxe used in digging out the redd; but it seems to me that nature 
has provided this singular excrescence as a protection and safeguard against the 
savage attacks made on each other. So large is its size, and so closely does it fit 
into the hole or socket formed in the upper jaw, that it would appear almost 
impossible for the fish even to open his mouth ; but he does so, to some extent at 
least, and with its cat-like teeth inflicts deep, and sometimes dangerous wounds 
on his antagonists. As to its alleged use as a digging implement, the substance 
of the beak is cartilaginous, not horny, and by no means hard; it would be worn 
down in the process of digging in ten minutes, and, moreover, the female alone 
prepares the redd. After leaving the stone or rock under which it has sought 
protection, the young fish grows very rapidly, as is natural in one destined to 
attain such huge dimensions as the salmon. In the course of a month or six 
weeks the fry have attained to the length of 4 inches, and are then called ‘ parr ’; 
when they bear conspicuously on their bodies transverse marks or bars, which 
are common to the young of every member of the salmon family. Unfortunately, 
there is another little fish, a humble relation of the lordly salmon, also barred, very 
similar in appearance, which too is called a parr, and the identity in name and 
similarity in appearance has occasioned great confusion and controversy, especially 
as they are inhabitants of the same waters, and affect to some extent each other’s 
company. The time of their remaining in the parr stage is also a subject of 
dispute; and while some say two, three, or sometimes four years, my opinion is 
that they remain one year only. In the second April of their existence a change 
in the appearance of the parr occurs, which assumes the silvery scales of the adult 
fish, wearing his new apparel over his old barred coat. He is now called a ‘ smolt,’ 
and perhaps, with a wish to exhibit himself in his new and beautiful apparel, 
evinces a daily increasing restlessness and desire to quit his home. With the 
first floods in May myriads of these lovely little fishes start on their downward 
journey toward the sea. It is a beautiful sight to watch their movements when 
descending; and for many days the river teems with them, not a square foot of 
water being without one when the stream is at all rapid. As fry the smolts were 
exposed to many dangers, but they were nothing to those which beset them as 
parrs on their journey towards the sea. Their enemies are legion. Trout and 
pike devour them; gull swoop down and swallow them wholesale. Herons, 
standing mid-leg deep in the water, pick them out as they pass; and even their 
vol. v .—32 
