se of six and a half ounces in
about eighty days' residence in salt water, supposing it to have
descended to the sea immediately after its markings were imposed. In
this condition of herlings or phinocks, young sea-trout enter many of
our rivers in great abundance in the months of July and August.

On the 1st of August 1837--fifteen months after being marked as fry, on
its way to the sea--another individual was caught, and recognised by the
absence of one fin, and the curtailment of another. This specimen, as
well as others, had no doubt returned, and escaped detection as a
herling, in 1836; but it was born for greater things, and when captured,
as above stated, weighed two pounds and a half. "He may be supposed,"
says Mr Shaw, "to represent pretty correctly the average size of
sea-trout on their second migration from the sea." In this state they
usually make their appearance in our rivers, (we refer at present
particularly to those of Scotland,) in greatest abundance in the months
of May and June. This view of the progress of the species clearly
accounts for a fact well known to anglers, that in spring and the
commencement of summer, larger sea-trout are caught than in July and
August, which would not be the case if they were all fish of the same
season. But the former are herlings which have descended, after spawning
early, to the sea, and returned with the increase just mentioned; the
latter were nothing more than smolts in May, and have only once enjoyed
the benefit of sea bathing. They are a year younger than the others.

As herlings (sea-trout in their third year) abounded in the river Nith
during the summer of 1834, Mr Shaw marked a great number (524) by
cutting off the adipose fin. "During the following summer (1835) I
recaptured sixty-eight of the above number as sea-trout, weighing on an
average about two and a half pounds. On these I put a second distinct
mark, and again returned them to the river, and on the next ensuing
summer (1836) I recaptured a portion of them, about one in twenty,
averaging a weight of four pounds. I now marked them distinctively for
the third time, and once more returned them to the river, also for the
third time. On the following season (23d day of August 1837) I
recaptured the individual now exhibited, for the fourth time.[26] It
then weighed six pounds." This is indeed an eventful history, and we
question if any _Salmo trutta_ ever before felt himself so often out of
his element.