90 PHYSOSTOMI. 



Names. The term salmon-trout was originally employed under the supposition 

 that these fish were hybrids between the salmon and the trout. Mori or Sprod, 

 Cumberland and Lancashire. White trout, salmon-trout, bull-trout if large and 

 coarse : the scurf, Johnston. In the. grilse stage in Scotland, phinoJc, herling, 

 whitling, black-tail, silver-white, smelt, sprod, herring-sprod : and lammasmen, 

 Edinburgh market. During tbe first year or two parr, orange fins or yellow fins: 

 sil-bodiam, Welsh, which descend to the sea as smolts. Pennant gives the Welsh 

 names as gioyn-idd " white pate," and gleis-idd " blue pate." 



Habits. This species has generally the habits of the salmon but not to so game 

 an extent, nor is it so powerful, still it is active and appears to move more of an 

 evening and during the night than during the day, and frequently selects more 

 sluggish waters than suit the salmon, even where the bottom is sandy or muddy. 

 It is often found at the tail of a pool or where the waters are quiet, but is of a 

 roving disposition. It is a wary and sharp-sighted form, always suspicious, and 

 the angler requires a long line when attempting to take it. It dashes at flies 

 but appears in some streams to lie rather deep in the water and hardly to be a 

 surface form. It is very destructive to small fish and by no means averse to 

 consuming the eggs or the young of the salmon. In an example 14 inches long 

 from the Dee, taken in July, 1882, I removed four sand launces, Ammodytes, from 

 its maw. Sir W. Jardine found the common food to be the sand hopper, Talitrus 

 locust a. 



In the mackerel drift nets employed from March until May in the British 

 Channel, single examples of this fish are frequently taken. Also at the mouths of 

 rivers in Cornwall during summer and autumn in hang or moored nets. While 

 even in the rivers a few are captured throughout the year, showing that similar to 

 the salmon it is not invariably absent, but it more generally becomes abundant at 

 the end of summer or in the autumn. The migrations of the Salmo trutta and its 

 varieties, correspond to a great extent with those of the salmon, but it appears to 

 possess somewhat less power, and consequently is not so capable of ascent and 

 overcoming obstructions. Some very interesting figures are adduced by Bussell 

 showing the proportionate number of these fishes captured in the Tweed during 

 the eight and a half open months of the year. One-tenth were taken in the first 

 three and a half months, or from the middle of February to the end of May ; and 

 nine-tenths during the remaining five and a half months extending from June 1st 

 to the middle of October. In fact, in June they suddenly augmented by 300 per 

 cent, and in July stood at the highest figure : but a change now occurred, the fish 

 becoming of less average weight, pointing to a large proportion being young. In 

 some of the Irish rivers the salmon trout runs very early. Mr. Congreve considers 

 bull-trout to be sterile examples of this species which have ceased breeding and 

 discontinued their annual migrations, while their flesh may be either white or 

 pink. 



Means of capture. These fish are very wary and it has been observed in the 

 Tweed and neighbouring fisheries that they will not freely enter the chambers of 

 the fixed nets, the proportion of them captured there being one for every nine 

 grilse or four salmon. But in the drifting hang nets at the mouths of the rivers 

 or in the estuaries three or four trout are taken for every salmon, and in about 

 equal numbers with the grilse. The same is observed elsewhere, and in the 

 estuaries of South Wales sewin of from 1 lb. to 4 lb. weight are frequently captured 

 during March and April. 



Anglers find in rivers these fish will mostly take a worm if the waters are 

 muddy, as it begins to clear a spinning bait, when fine a fly. If hooked they 

 often display considerable cunning in their attempts to break the line with 

 a blow from the tail, or impetuously dart off" when a similar result ensues, 

 should it not run readily off the reel. In Scotland an hour or two's white trout 

 fishing when the fish are in the humour, is esteemed good sport as they often 

 take a fly well, up to 6 or 7 lb. weight ; while in Wales the sewin similarly 

 are sought after, especially of an evening, with fine tackle and a small fly. But 

 large examples, as bull-trout, appear to refuse bait or flies. The smaller ones 

 in salt water readily take a spinning bait and are often thus fished for on the 



