116 NOTES ON IRISH NATURAL HISTORY. 



pigs, were swept from the face of the earth : nearly a hun- 

 dred bridges were totally demolished, and watercourses, — 

 foaming rivers, — flowed where none were known before. It 

 began raining about midnight, little more than two hours af- 

 ter the glorious sunset I have described, and the water seemed 

 to descend in streams rather than drops during the whole of 

 the ensuing day. 



From Bantry 1 went to Skibbereen : the stony and hilly 

 country possessed but little that was interesting, and though 

 farming was attempted, it was the most wretched attempt 

 I had yet seen. Osmunda, Athyrium Filix-fcemina, and 

 LastrcBa dilatata^ were abundant, but generally of stunted 

 growth. Between Skibbereen and Rosscarberry are some 

 small but picturesque lakes, celebrated for their trout-fishing; 

 the gillaroo trout being taken in great abundance. Mr. Pen- 

 nant treats of this as a variety of the common trout; but al- 

 most every fisherman in Ireland thinks differently, and the 

 Rev. Mr. Maxwell also appears to treat it as distinct.' I 

 cannot say much in favour of Mr. Maxwell's zoological at- 

 tainments; his mistaking the eagle for the osprey, and gravely 

 quoting Bewick's description of the osprey as an illustration 

 of the eagle of Achill, is a remarkable instance of his ignor- 

 ance in the ornithological branch of the subject; but with 

 fish he is evidently more at home. The gillaroo trout differs 

 principally from the common trout in the extreme hardness 

 and gizzard-like structure of its stomach, a character that 

 especially adapts it to the comminution of the testaceous 

 Mollusca on which it feeds. It is usually twice the size of 

 the common trout. It has been said that the gillaroo has only 

 been found west of the Shannon, but this I am scarcely in- 

 clined to believe : I have indisputable authority for recording 

 it as a native of the loughs near Skibbereen, which, though 

 not to the east of the course of the Shannon, can nevertheless 

 scarcely be said to be west of that river. The fish from Lough 

 Neagh figured by Mr. Yarrell^ has little resemblance in form 

 to the gillaroo of the west, a fish which is more correctly re- 

 presented by the rough cut in the ' Dublin Penny Journal.' ^ 



Sir Humphrey Davy says that " the gillaroo trout differs in 

 appearance very little from the common trout, except that 

 they have more red spots, and a yellow or golden-coloured 

 belly and fins, and are generally a broader and thicker fish ; 

 but internally they have a different organization, possessing 

 a large, thick, muscular stomach, which has been improperly 



' Wild Sports of the West, passim. = British Fishes, ii. 57. 

 3 Dublin Penny Journal, i. 80. 



