It had always been the prevailing belief that smolts grew rapidly into grilse, and the latter into salmon.
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.
We have just seen that smolts return to the rivers as grilse, (of the weights above noted,) during the summer and autumn of the same season in which they had descended for the first time to the sea.
It is equally certain that all who have written upon the subject ofsmolts or salmon-fry, maintained that these grew rapidly in fresh water, and made their way to the sea in the course of a few weeks after they were hatched.
At these seasons the smolts are preparing to come down, and the kelts of salmon and sea trout are assembling in the large pools prior to their return to salt water.
A couple of hundred gulls will devour at least a thousand smolts per day; and the birds may be seen at Loch Lomond travelling to and from Gull Island and the burns all day, each with a trout or parr in its beak.
Then it has an all-capacious maw for silvery smolts as they are making their way down to the sea, and of these at certain seasons it devours myriads.
Although the throng of our smolts descend in April and May, we have smolts descending in March, and as late in the season as August, which lapse of time agrees with the continuance of our spawning season.
They were only smolts in the immediately preceding spring, and are becoming grilse from week to week, and of various sizes, according to the length of their continuance in the sea.
But it is midsummer before the regularly migrating smolts reappear as grilse.
Thus a few descending March smolts give a few ascending May grilses; while our April and May swarms of smolts yield our hordes of grilse in June and July.
After July, grilses decrease in numbers till October, in proportion to the falling off of smolts from May to August.
I have earnestly searched for smolts in the winter months, year after year, and I can only say that I have never seen one, although I have certainly tried every possible means to find them.
Even those smolts which descend together in April and May, (the chief periods of migration,) do not agree in size.
Indeed, at all other times of the year, they feed on the fry of salmon, and continue their destruction till the day the smolts leave the rivers.
I have seen fish spawning through the course of six months, and I have seen smoltsdescending through the same length of time.
I have often cut up trout, and got smolts in their stomach; and last week a trout was opened in Mr Buist's fish-yard with four full-grown smolts in its belly.
Does Salmo Salar think that one ton and a tenth of Smolts go down the river Hodder to the sea on an average of years?
It may be said, How do you know that one of the three or four varieties of Smoltswhich you describe further on, is not the fry of the Mort?
The prohibition to set Eel nets in April, May, and June is to prevent the destruction of Smolts when going down to the sea.
Let us suppose that the millions of Smolts (as Par) have only one meal each of Salmon roe, and we will stint them to twenty ova apiece.
The Bramblings are supposed to be Smolts which remain a year longer than the usual time; they are few in number, and are generally taken with the May fly.
The smolts of the first year return from the sea, while their brothers and sisters are timidly disporting in the breeding shallows of the upper streams.
When they have become smoltsthe fish betake themselves in bands to the sea.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "smolts" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
