198,"Bye-Laws," and "Public right to fish with Rod and Line." Tay Commissioners, 2nd April, 1866, 5 Irvine, 224; Anderson, 25th November, 1867, 40 Scotch Jurist, 87, "Bag Nets" on Tweed, Johnstone, 25th May, 1868, 1 Couper's Rep. 51, and 40 Jurist, 512, "Immediate Imprisonment," Mc.Dowell, 7th March, 1868; 1 Couper, 9, "Oath of one Witness;" Jopp, 15th April, 1869, 1 Couper, 240,"Quashing Conviction." Mc. Allan, 24th May, 1869, 41 Jurist 604, and 1 Couper, 307. "Mill Hecks;" Blair v. Sandeman and ditto against Lumsden, 16th July, 1869; 1st Couper, 309, Kennedy v. Murray, 8th July, 1869, 41, Jurist, 560. This may be called a leading case on mill dams and their construction, and the powers vested in said Commissioners to have their orders obeyed by mill owners, &c. There are, however, two other subjects, relative to Scotch Salmon Fishery, not devoid of interest at this particular juncture, viz., "Obsolete Statutes" and " Slavery." In the year 1793 there was an attempt on the part of the then Procurator-Fiscal of the Town of Stirling to put into operation an old obsolete Salmon Statute against some poor men in the neighbourhood of Stirling, but which failed. The Pror. Fiscal of Stirling v. John Gillies and others, 20th November, 1798, Faculty Coll. Reports, vol. 10, p. 159. And again there was an attempt in the year 1696 to make fishermen slaves, which likewise failed; Reid Beverly, &c., against the Laird of Woodney, &c., 31st July, 1696; Morrison's Reports, 4427. The Lords of Session, of that era, found the Laird's proceedings corruptela.

APPENDIX.

ARE PARR YOUNG SALMON ONLY.

SIR, I carefully read the leading article in the Courant of 12th inst. on this rather interesting question, as also your more recent observations on the point, all of which have been elicited by and bore special reference to the case decided the other day by Sheriff Barclay, of Perth. I also noticed the letter of "E. H." on the subject in your issue of 20th inst., and the explanatory note appended thereto, but which I observe lacks the impression of your official initials, and so I presume is to be regarded as rather the opinion of the writer in, than that of the editor of, the Courant.

I do not desire at present to enter upon any lengthened discussion of the subject, but, as one who has paid some attention to this parr question for many years, wish merely to say that, based on personal observation, I hold an opinion different to some extent from that of the writer in your columns. He maintains, and in what seems rather decided terms, that parr are the young of the salmon only; others hold that parr never become salmon, but are a distinct species of small fish. The belief I personally entertain on the matter, and which, I think, solves the whole difficulty is medio tutissimus ibis; that the young of salmon in their different stages of growth are known by the names of fry, then parr, smolt, and grilse; that the young of the sea trout, of the bull trout, and others are also called parr; and that there is, besides, a species of small trout known by that name. This opinion, I venture to say, is fully borne out by the evidence led in the recent Perth case. In some rivers, when low during autumn, scarce anything may be caught but the small fish called parr. The most of those so caught will, I am bold to say, be found on careful examination to be the parr trout. I have with my own hands, year after year, in order to test the parr question to my own satisfaction, opened and cleaned dozens of the small fish so named, and found them to contain melt or roe, and that fully developed in most of them, even in

very small ones of four and five inches in length. That species of trout attains to six or eight inches at most in length, and that they are called parr in the districts where they abound is, I believe, undoubted. Many of those parrs are very silvery in the scales, and nearly resemble the salmon smolt in appearance, but, unlike the latter in their habits, do not generally lie in shoals, and are not so great a nuisance to the trout angler, either in April or May, or at any other time. Now, will any one maintain that in the true salmon parr, or even in its older stage as a smolt, fully developed melt or roe is natural, or has ever been found? I presume not. Among these parrs I have occasionally observed what I thought a true salmon or sea trout parr, from the shape of the head, the colour of the fins, the want of melt or roe and otherwise, but as to these I have never been thoroughly satisfied, and, if called on, would be very chary in giving any decided opinion regarding them, because of the great resemblance which the different kinds of parr bear to one another.

The issue for trial in the Perth case was just the question, Were the nine fish, or any of them, found in the possession of the accused in the end of June, 1869, the fry or parr of salmon? And Sheriff Barclay, in finding it not proved that they were so, humbly seems to me to have arrived at a just decision on the case as presented to him on the evidence. When even Mr. Peter Marshall would say that in his opinion only five out of the nine fish libelled were salmon parr, and when others gave contrary evidence and expressed a belief that they were not salmon parr, but rather parr trout, the learned Sheriff could not well have decided otherwise than he did. The note to the learned judge's interlocutor shows that though no fisher himself, as he candidly tells us, he yet clearly apprehended, as was to be expected, the real question failing to be decided under the complaint, and to the particular charge in which alone the remit by the Justiciary Court had of course special reference. The evidence conclusively showed that there are other parr than salmon parr; and besides the Perth and Dunblane worthies referred to by you, I am satisfied you will find innumerable others who hold that opinion. It will not do, therefore, as has been suggested, to include all parr in any forthcoming salmon statute. The reference to parr in any criminal statute ought, for the reasons I have adduced, to be limited to the fry or parr of salmon and sea-trout merely, and not to parr in general. Edinburgh, I am, &c. ANDREW WILSON.

22nd July, 1870.

Addendum, October, 1882.

The above letter having been brought under my notice by Mr. Flowerdew, I have, at his suggestion, pleasure in stating that every year since it was written, I have caught many parr (trout) from four to six inches in length, some of them having the bars beautifully marked, and their scales as clear and sparkling as those of a salmon smolt, but their colour otherwise not quite so blue, and on opening them I have found almost all of them, even the smallest, charged with either melt or roe, but most of them I think with melt, thus fully corroborating what I wrote twelve years ago. I have no note, nor do I remember, of ever finding either melt or roe developed in any of the young salmon smolt, which I have caught in spring, and these, although of equal size as, or even larger than, the parr (trout) have always been more tender, and have had the appearance of having been far more rapid in their growth than the latter. My opinion, therefore, up to the present time remains the same that the smolts or young of the salmon (and sea trout) develope in their natural element, that is, in a running stream, as distinguished from an artificial tank or pond, far more quickly than many artificial breeders of them are willing to admit. Indeed, smolts, or young of salmon, are so rapid in their growth that after going down to the sea in spring they will return in three or four months afterwards as beautiful grilse several pounds in weight.

But the parr (trout) never grow that weight and never go to sea,
And hence classing them with the smolt is an absurdity.

B. of S. Edinburgh, 16th October, 1882.

A. W.

"G. R." writes in Land and Water in June, 1872.

The game laws do not perhaps represent the perfection of human wisdom, as evidenced by human legislation, nor is their operation at all times satisfactory; but they possess this meritthey are not only clear as to their meaning and intent, but equally so as to their objects. When Hodge is brought before the bench for wiring a hare, or stealing a hatful of pheasant's eggs, no plea is placed on record that the animal in question was a polecat or a hedgehog; no scientific witnesses are brought up to prove that the eggs are those of the jay or the pie. In this element of certainty the game laws are immeasurably in advance of the salmon laws, which, complicated and uncertain as they are, become ten times more so by the difference of opinion which exists as to the identity of the objects to which they are intended to apply. This result is

attributable to the deficient amount of special knowledge possessed by the framers of the Acts. The game laws were made by men who, if prejudiced, as possibly they may have been, knew perfectly well what they were doing; were intimately acquainted with the natural history and requirements of the birds and animals they sought to protect, and who took the most direct mode of doing so. This, unfortunately, is not the case with reference to fish. Acts have been passed, as a rule, by persons honestly desirous of protecting and increasing the supply of fish, but insufficiently acquainted with the natural history and requirements of their protégés; and a vast amount of litigation, and we fear of public loss, has been the result. Recently in the columns of Land and Water a discussion arose as to the real distinction between a kelt and a salmon; and Mr. Buckland propounded a scientific diagnosis which, although undeniably accurate, was for all practical purposes valueless. A fisherman can hardly be expected to furnish himself with dissecting instruments, or to learn how to use them, without which the tests suggested could not be applied. In a letter you were good enough to insert of my own, though asserting the impossibility of any experienced person mistaking a kelt for a clean fish, I admitted that the term "experienced" could be properly applied to very few indeed, and that the vast majority of anglers, as well as dealers and consumers, were utterly in the dark with reference to their distinctive marks. A similar controversy arose with respect to the "kipper grilse;" and the fight over the identity of the little fish known as the parr with the young salmon, and which in "The Autobiography of Salmon Salar," I attribute to the bestowing the same name upon two fish, still rages with undiminished acerbity whenever the question is raised. I venture to press my often-recorded conviction that the only mode of meeting the justice of the case, and satisfying those affected by the salmon laws, is by making them, with reference to their object, uniform and unmistakeable, and to draw a hard and fast line both as to the period of protection and the fish to be protected. The angling laws with reference to salmon and trout should be analogous to those in force for the protection of their coarser brethren in the Thames. No fish of the genus Salmo-that is, no fish possessed of an adipose fin-should be permitted to be taken from such a time to such a time, varying according to the requirements of the rivers. Within those limits let the capture and the destruction, or the setting free of the captured, rest with the rod-fisher. The only restriction I would insist upon would be in favour of baggits after,