when they leave the river than seems to be generally supposed, and
that the growth of this fish is by no means so rapid as it is
considered to be by those who have written upon the subject. For
several years previous to 1816 the Salmon were unable to ascend
into the upper parts of the river Wharfe, being prevented either
by the high weirs in the lower parts, or by some other cause, and
of course there were no Smolts or Par; but in that year either the
incessant rains of that summer or rumours of the formation of an
association for the protection of fish, or some other unknown
cause, enabled some Salmon to ascend the river, thirty or forty
miles, and to spawn there. In the next spring, 1817, there were no
Smolts, but about September they began to rise at the very small
flies which the anglers use in that river--they were then a little
larger than Minnows. In the spring of 1818 there were blue Smolts,
or what are generally known as Salmon fry, which went down to the
sea in the May of that year; but these were only part of the
brood, the females only, the males remaining all that summer,
being at the period when the females went down very much smaller
than they, and what was called at the Wharfe Grey Smolt and Pinks,
or Par elsewhere.

I have shown that there were two migrations from the spawn of
1816; but this was not all--there still remained a few Smolts
through the summer of 1819, which by that time were from four to
six ounces in weight, and which are known by the anglers there as
Brambling Smolts. The blue marks on their sides are very distinct,
and the fish is a perfect Smolt, except that it is considerably
larger. It is quite different from the Whitling, or Sprod, which
is not known in the Wharfe, at least not in the upper parts of
that river, whilst the Brambling is never seen in the Ribble. [1]