PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
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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 making observations in the salmon fishery connected 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 recollections and frequent 
fishing excursions satisfied me that the little fish known and described as the parr 
by Yarrell 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 excellent trout; the former, a lively stream, rapid over clean, gra¬ 
velly 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, unchanged 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 interest; along the banks of the river the Ephe¬ 
meras and the Phryganeas, as they suddenly emerged from the pupa state, almost 
as suddenly merged into the stomach of some lively trout; the light and the dark 
ash-fox, brown and gray Coughlins, and the hawthorn flies, as they floated along, 
or fluttered about the stream, were all the 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 cha¬ 
racters of the parr existing there, its comparison with that described in Yarrel, 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 distinguishing habits 
or characteristics ; but all are confounded as gravellings, and gravellings said to be 
to be the parr, the young of the salmon. My friend Williams had argued that the 
gravelling 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 was right; for neither were those we 
obtained in the Greece. These latter were identical with the accurate descriptions 
given by Yarrell, by Dr. Heyshaw, and by several authors. 
The head being of a greenish ash-colour; back and sides, above the lateral 
line, dusky, or olivaceous 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 Bandon, Laune, and the Carragh rivers, we 
find great distinctions in development and markings. In the true salmon-fry, the 
head more blunt; broader on the neck and shoulders; gill-covers marked 
similar with spots silvery gray; preoperculum much rounded, external edge soft; 
back, dusky ash-colour, with numerous minute dark spots, which do not go beneath 
the lateral line; nine bright orange, or approaching to vermilion-coloured spots 
along the lateral line, equalling in number the transverse bars ; pectoral fins, long 
in proportion, yellowish white, tinged with black; dusky spots generally absent on 
the dorsal fin; caudal fin, largely developed; ventral and anal fins, yellowish white; 
belly, white. The body is narrower in proportion to its length than that of the 
parr, and the teeth in a more rudimentary state. 
All the specimens of the Salmonidm that I have obtained are more or less in the 
young state characterized by those transverse bars. In the rivers where it frequents, 
the parr is abundant in all seasons, in the same stages of growth ; and even when the 
