NOTES ON SOME SCOTTISH SALMONID.E 77 



Here the fun became fast and furious, with scarcely even a 

 ripple on the surface. I soon had one |- Ib. and several 

 close on - Ib. In all, twenty-nine trout, weighing 7^- Ibs. 

 Of this dead water there are only about 100 yards. I 

 lost two or three fine trout quite as large as the biggest I 

 got. These, I am assured on all hands, are the first trout 

 killed here by rod and line or by any method since the 

 introduction by Mr. Neil Campbell about 1876. 



Now, as I have said, below the cave there is not more 

 than 30 yards of shallow stream, and one pool outside the 

 entrance of the cave, and the deep pools inside in which 

 boys catch small trout with worms. Pocan Smoo is a 

 narrow goe which may at one time have been roofed over 

 with limestone. 



The remarkable facts about these trout are as follows : 

 The bright, large, irregularly shaped blotches of crimson, 

 shining like sealing-wax, ran in a straight line along the 

 lateral line on either side of the fish, and in many places 

 became confluent, making an almost continuous crimson 

 streak with irregular edges almost entirely covering up the 

 dark lateral line. I was told that the small trout in the 

 cave pools were dark and "very ordinary looking fish." 



That no trout existed above the fall before the introduc- 

 tion is not very extraordinary or unusual. I know many 

 other places where such is the case ; as, for instance, in the 

 Alt Maldie near Kylesku, and the great Loch Lead Yuan 

 (where the late Mr. Gould the ornithologist introduced 

 trout), and others I shall still have to speak of. Now 

 natives usually account for the absence of trout above a fall 

 by simply saying, " Yes sir, they can't get above the fall." 

 But in the case of this Alt Smoo below the fall, the question 

 arises, How did the trout get there unless tliey had their first 

 origin in the sea, or has the land sunk, and a larger portion 

 of the river been submerged by the sea ? But see again 

 under Parr-marked Trout, infra, p. 8 I . 



One other point is raised by the extraordinary bright- 

 ness, size, and confluence of the spots along the lateral line. 

 Has this extraordinarily bright superabundance of colour 

 been produced by a sudden release from the dark imprison- 

 ment of the cave pools and translation to the sparkling 



