Note (return) — NATURAL HISTORY OF SALMON AND SEA-TROUT.

No sooner had Mr Young satisfied himself that the produce of a river invariably returned to that river after descending to the sea, than he commenced his operations upon the smolts—taking up the subject where it was unavoidably left off by Mr Shaw17. His long-continued superintendence of the Duke of Sutherland's fisheries in the north of Scotland, and his peculiar position as residing almost within a few yards of the noted river Shin, afforded advantages of which he was not slow to make assiduous use. He has now performed numerous and varied experiments, and finds that, notwithstanding the slow growth of parr in fresh water, "such is the influence of the sea as a more enlarged and salubrious sphere of life, that the very smolts which descend into it from the rivers in spring, ascend into the fresh waters in the course of the immediate summer as grilse, varying in size in proportion to the length of their stay in salt water."