282. THE COTTAGE GARDENER. July 13. 
wick-street, on Friday evening, the 10th of June; James R. 
Dombrain, Esq., in the chair. 
A beautiful specimen of Pheasant Fowl was presented by 
P. P. Williams, Esq., who observed that he was anxious to 
place in the collection a complete series of the best breeds 
of fowl introduced to this country. This fowl is acknow¬ 
ledged to be purely English breed, but has been erroneously 
termed Hamburg. 
The chairman called on Mr. Andrews for his paper, “ Re¬ 
marks on the Spawning States of the Syngnathidte, or Pipe¬ 
fish family.” 
Mr. Andrews said, that before commencing the papers for 
the evening, he was desirous of placing on record some 
Plants that had been first noticed in this country at the 
meetings of the Society. The first was a very remarkable 
lorrn of Saxifraya yeum, fine specimens of which he sub¬ 
mitted to the meeting. It was found by Mr. Andrews, in 
the Great Blasket Island, in 1842, and noticed in the society 
at the December meeting of that year. It was remarkable 
for its strong growth and dark hirsute leaves, but more par¬ 
ticularly in the glands which surround the ovary, and which 
in the flowering state of the plant present a beautiful ap¬ 
pearance, the glands being of a deep rose colour. It seemed 
remarkably in connecting the Saxifragacearwith the Parnassian 
and Crassulacean; it produces perfect seeds, and the seedlings 
present the same characteristics as the parent plant. Doctor 
Harvey, who took specimens to England, writes—“ Charles 
Darwin was very much interested in your Blasket Saxifrage, 
particularly at the fact of its producing perfect seeds. He 
is working out some observations on the continuability of 
varieties by seed, and wishes much to know whether the 
seedlings lrom this saxifrage produce the metamorpliic 
glands of the parent. I told him I thought they did, but 
would get the full particulars from you.” My friend, Mr. 
Simon Foot, who cultivated the plant, confirms the fact of 
the seedlings having the same formation of glands as the 
parent, and informed me that Dr. Bindley observed to him 
that he considered it would prove to be a plant of great 
interest. Plants of Saxifraya Pcdatifida, Arabis Crantziana, 
and Saxifraya leucanthemifofia, were exhibited, as originally 
noticed in the society—the two 'former discovered by the 
Bight Hon. John Wynne, of Haslewood, the saxifrage in 
Mayo, and the Arabis on Benbulben, Sligo. The Saxifraya 
Icucaiilhemifolia, which exhibited numerous foliaceous buds 
on the flowering branches, and which, on falling off, became 
young plants, was brought by Dr. Scouler from Portugal. 
On flowering the following year this peculiarity in the plant 
was seen and brought forward, as it had not been noticed by 
any Continental botanist. The plants do not perfect their 
seeds. These plants were submitted for the object of being 
recorded in the Natural History Review, a journal in which 
the proceedings of the Society are now regularly given. 
Mr. Andrews then continued. It had been my intention 
this evening to have submitted to the Society some pecu¬ 
liarities that 1 had observed in the spawning states of the 
Synynalhidte, or pipe-fish family, more especially with refe¬ 
rence to Synynalhus typhle —the deep-nosed pipe-fish; and 
to the straight nosed pipe-fish, S. ophidian; and to have 
added a review of the several British species (all of which 
1 have obtained on the south-west coast), detailing their 
several habits and seasons of spawning. From this, how¬ 
ever, I have been diverted by several communications that 
have been made relative to the habits of the salmon, and as 
to the identity of the fish known as the parr, or gravelling, 
with the salmo-salar. f J bis being a subject of such import¬ 
ance, not only in a scientific point, but in its practical appli¬ 
cation, that I again lay aside my paper upon the Syngnathidce, 
with tlie hope that this will afford full discussion of interest 
for the evening. It may be in the recollection of the 
members, a paper of great interest, given by Mr. Ffennell, 
Inspecting Commissioner of Fisheries, in the month of 
lebruary, 1849, “on the habits and spawning states of 
the salmon, and upon the salmon fisheries of this country.” 
In that paper Mr. Ffennell supported the view of Mr. Shaw, 
ot Drumlanrig, relative to the first, and the parr state of the 
young salmon, and its remaining two years in the river be¬ 
fore it assumed the smolt, or migratory state; and though 
he admitted that the seasons and the condition of salmon 
were not the same in all rivers, yet he maintained that a 
uniform system of open and close season should be adopted 
in order to prevent the nefarious and injurious system that 
might probably result in salmon being exposed for sale in a 
public market talien from a close river while other rivers 
were open. This paper was in some measure an explanation 
with reference to an inquiry held on the fisheries of the i 
Caragh and the Laune in Kerry. My friend, Mr. ‘Williams, 
at that meeting of the Society, energetically disputed that 
the fish known generally as the parr or gravelling was the 
young of the salmon. He had made examinations of an 
extensive collection of that little fish, which he had obtained j 
throughout the season from the rivers of Cork and of Wick- j 
low, and he was not disposed to agree with Mr. Shaw, of 
Drumlanrig, that all gravellings were the young of the , 
salmon. At the meetings of the months of April and of 
May last notices were again brought forward by Mr. Ffennell 
and by Mr. Williams, and which, differing in some views and 
principles, I thought it might lead to interesting, and I trust 
useful discussion, to submit some of the fish in the parr and 
in the smolt state, and to offer a few remarks. At the time 
of that discussion, in 1849, my attention had been chiefly 
directed to the sea-fisheries of the west coast, but during the 
seasons of 1848, 1849, and 1850, I had ample practical 
means of forming observations in the salmon fishery con¬ 
nected with the project I was engaged in. Determined to 
follow out that inquiry as time and circumstances permitted, 
my friend Mr. Williams accompanied me, on the 23rd of 
May, to Carlow, to visit the little river Greece. Former re¬ 
collections and frequent fishing excursions satisfied me that 
the little fish known and described as the parr by Yarrall, 
existed there in abundance. The rivers Greece and Ler, 
which stream through the borders of Carlow and Kildare, 
and empty into the river Barrow, are famous for their ex¬ 
cellent trout; the former a lively stream, rapid over clean 
gravelly beds, produces abundance of bright and well-fed 
trout. Although the day was in every way unsuited to the 
wishes of a fly-fisher, we, however, soon obtained the object 
of our search. Many years have passed since my former 
visits, but there was the same purling restless stream, the 
banks, the untopped wall leading to the old bridge, un¬ 
changed and untouched as it were but yesterday. Carlow is 
delightfully rural; its avenue-like roads, bordered with tall 
fragrant hawthorn, made us buoyantly feel the change from 
city life. Besides, to the naturalist, every step afforded in¬ 
terest—along the banks of the river the Ephemera; and the 
Pln-yganeae, as they suddenly emerged from the pupa state, 
almost as suddenly merged into the stomach of some lively 
trout—the light and the dark asli-fox, brown and gray 
Coughlins, and the hawthorn flies, as they floated along, or 
fluttered about the stream, were all objects of attraction. 
The question which we sought the elucidation of, was not as 
to whether salmon do, or do not, enter the Greece from the 
Barrow, or whether the shallow beds of that little stream 
are, or are not, suited for spawning ground, but with regard 
to the distinctive characters of the parr existing there, its 
comparison with that described in Yarrell, and with that of 
the true salmon fry. The local terms, lasprings, gravel- 
lasprings, salmon-pink, fingerlings, gravellings, parr, and 
samlet, have all been made of too general application, 
and no proper separation has been drawn to distinguish 
habits or characteristics, but to confound all as gravel¬ 
lings, and gravellings to be the parr, the young of the 
salmon. My friend Williams had argued that the gravel¬ 
ling that he had obtained in some of the rivers of Cork 
and of Wicklow, were not the young of the salmon, and so 
far he w r as right, for neither were those we obtained in the 
Greece. Those we obtained were identical with the accu¬ 
rate descriptions given by Yarrell, by Doctor Heyshaw, and 
by several authors—the head being of a greenish asli-colour 
—back and sides above the lateral line dusky, or oliva¬ 
ceous-brown, marked with numerous dark spots, bordering 
the lateral line, a series of carmine or vermilion-coloured spots 
—belly silvery white, and the body marked with nine or ten 
bluish-coloured transverse bars—gill-covers have generally 
two dark-coloured spots, one more strongly marked than 
the other—dorsal fin with a few dusky spots—pectoral fins, 
larger than those of the common trout, yellowish white, anal 
and ventral fins, yellowish, caudal fin, much forked; body 
deeper in proportion to its length —general length from 
four to six inches. Now, on comparing these specimens 
with those of the true salmon-fry, obtained from the Ban- 
