226 COMMON TROUT. 



especiall}' in colour and habits, which has suggested the question 

 whether there may not be more than a single species in our 

 rivers; but to this for the present we hesitate to return a con- 

 fident answer. Cuvier and Bloch are supposed to have made 

 mistakes in this, and we prefer to follow the example of 

 Willoughby and Sir William Jardine in considering the several 

 appearances in which they differ as signs of variation only. In 

 truth, we do not feel ourselves competent to decide at what 

 point the line of distinction as regards species in this case should 

 be drawn ; since within the sphere of our own observation we 

 have been witness to changes that have appeared to alter the 

 identity of some varieties of this fish, while we have been 

 confident of their being the same individuals; and we have 

 known others that from apparently long-continued existence in 

 one sort of form and colour, might be regarded distinct, but 

 which under change of external circumstances have returned 

 to a near resemblance of the usually common type. 



We take in the first place as our example the Common Trout 

 of our rivers and brooks, the history of which is without 

 obscurity, and by comparison with this the habits and forms of 

 other and perhaps more doubtful kinds will be better understood. 

 The Common Trout is a fish of much activity, and delights in 

 clear and rapid streams, with a preference for such as flow over 

 a clean and gravelly bottom. There it swims, usually and 

 especially in cloudy and cold weather, low in the Avater where |i 



the river is not deep, and with its head against the current it 

 maintains its station, perhaps near some eddy, with a watchful 

 eye for every moving object. A worm or small shell-fish is 

 acceptable, and it leaps eagerly at a fly that for a moment may 

 stray or settle on the surface; but Avhen larger grown it gives 

 a preference to a small fish, and an unfortunate minnow, one of 

 many in a sportive assemblage that are unconscious of fear or 

 danger, is a temptation not to be resisted. It also watches the 

 spawning of the Salmon to devour the roe in spite of the 

 vigilance of the parents, and gorges itself with the helpless young 

 ones as they shoAv themselves above the gravel, within the shelter 

 of which they had long lain hid; but here, as with the imitated 

 minnow, their eagerness leads them to their fate, for the angler 

 supplies hin self with the coveted material as one of his most 

 attractive baits. We have not thought it necessary to enter at 



