ts of Scotland, and
_Salmo trutta_, commonly called the sea or white trout, but, like the
other species, also known under a variety of provincial names, somewhat
vaguely applied. In its various and progressive stages, it passes under
the names of fry, smolt, orange-fin, phinock, herling, whitling,
sea-trout, and salmon-trout. It is likewise the "Fordwich trout" of
Izaak Walton, described by that poetical old piscator as "rare good
meat." As an article of diet it indeed ranks next to the salmon, and is
much superior in that respect to its near relation, _S. eriox_. It is
taken in the more seaward pools of our northern rivers, sometimes in
several hundreds at a single haul; and vast quantities, after being
boiled, and hermetically sealed in tin cases, are extensively consumed
both in our home and foreign markets. But, notwithstanding its great
commercial value, naturalists have failed to present us with any
accurate account of its consecutive history from the ovum to the adult
state. This desideratum we are now enabled to supply through Mr Shaw.

On the 1st of November 1839, this ingenious observer perceived a pair of
sea-trouts engaged together in depositing their spawn among the gravel
of one of the tributaries of the river Nith, and being unprovided at the
moment with any apparatus for their capture, he had recourse to his
fowling-piece. Watching the moment when they lay parallel to each other,
he fired across the heads of the devoted pair, and immediately secured
them both, although, as it afterwards appeared, rather by the influence
of concussion than the more immediate action of the shot. They were
about six inches under water. Having obtained a sufficient supply of the
impregnated spawn, he removed it in a bag of wire gauze to his
experimental ponds. At this period the temperature of the water was
about 47 deg., but in the course of the winter it ranged a few degrees
lower. By the fortieth day the embryo fish were visible to the naked
eye, and, on the 14th January, (seventy-five days after deposition,) the
fry were excluded from the egg. At this early period, the brood exhibit
no perceptible difference from that of the salmon, except that they are
somewhat smaller, and of paler hue. In two months they were an inch
long, and had then assumed those lateral markings so characteristic of
the young of all the known _Salmonidae_. They increased in size slowly,
measuring only three inches in length by the month of October,