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SIZE AND AGE OF THE SMOLT.

227

begin to look more dimly through the scaly coating, and we now see the young fish fairly undergoing another wonderful and interesting change, and rapidly advancing towards perfection."

The 9th and last figure, is that of a smolt or salmon-fry one year old. The transverse bars are apparently gone, completely covered with silver scales. The young fish, "clean as a smelt,” has assumed its migratory coat, and in colour and shape, if not in size, puts in a clear title to its salmon descent. It is now completely silver-sided. Its silver scales are easily rubbed off, and when that occurs the transverse bars become again visible, showing what caused the visible disappearance of the latter. The length of the specimen here represented was five and a half inches. Of young salmon at this stage, Mr. Young says:

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They have now got on their migratory dress, and are fully prepared to leave the streams of their nativity for the trackless ocean; they are now full of mirth and activity, gathering together, in shoals, and sporting freely among the waters; feeding greedily, and at this time, they will very readily rise at and take a fly, either natural or artificial. We have various accounts of their size at this age. Some make the smolts in general eight inches long; some allege to have seen them

228 OUR SPECIMENS OF SALMON-FRY.

ten inches, while others have ventured even as high as fourteen inches long. We could mention numbers of half-and-between experiments, from which we have various calculations, and although we are convinced that these experiments were made with the best intentions, yet they fell very far short of the truth; as the fry were often placed in ponds and places of confinement, and their ages, both when they were put in and taken out, unknown. From these imperfect experiments have arisen all the conflicting opinions regarding their size in the smolt state. In all the many congregations of smolts I have examined, their individual length varied from four to six inches, but in the great majority of instances the length was about five inches."

The reader is urged to bear in mind that our larger drawings are after specimens "born and bred" in the river Shin, and not from ova or fry taken from that river and transferred to spawning-beds or ponds fed by water proceeding from another source. On the contrary, the experiments of Mr. Shaw were made on ova and fry taken from the waters of the river Nith, and removed to experimental basins supplied by "a stream of pure spring water," or by that of "a rivulet." Hence, we presume, the tardy growth of his fry; his "con

MR. SHAW'S SPECIMENS.

229

verted parr," as he designates it, or smolt, being two years old, whilst ours is only one. At two years old his smolt measures about six inches in length; ours at the age of one year measures five and a half inches, and at the age of two years it will be most probably a well-conditioned salmon, weighing from nine to fourteen pounds, or at any rate it will be a grilse-kelt, averaging between two and three feet in length, at a very moderate calculation, and having been of the weight of six lbs. or thereabouts at the age of eighteen months, that is at the time or nearly so of its spawning for the first time. At this age of eighteen months, Mr. Shaw's engraved specimen is about five and a half inches in length, and its transverse bars distinctly visible. It could barely weigh six ounces. at that age would weigh as many pounds or more, and would be much nearer thirty-six inches in length than five and a half inches. A very great error exists somewhere. Is it ours or Mr. Shaw's? Time will tell.

Ours

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