A LIST OF SCOTTISH HERONRIES, PAST AND PRESENT 223 



SOLWAY. 



Brunt Fir Wood, Dumfries. Jardine Hall. 



Castle Kennedy, Stranraer. Langholm. 



Castlemilk, Lockerbie. *Loch Goosey. 



Compton, Kirkcudbrightshire. Monaive, Dalwhat Water. 



Craigmuie, Glencairn. St. Mary's Isle. 



Dairy, Kirkcudbrightshire. Shaw, Dryfe Water. 



Dalswinton. Shaws, River Nith (?). 



Dumcrieff, Moffat. Southwick. 



Haleaths, Lochmaben. White Loch of Myrton. 



3 Willow Mansions, West Hampstead, 

 London, N.W. 



A HUMP-BACKED TROUT FROM STRANRAER. 



By James Ritchie, M.A., B.Sc. 

 Plate IV. 



That the normal structures of fishes are frequently departed 

 from is a fact not unfamiliar to the angler and to the casual 

 observer of a fish-market's supplies. The more noticeable 

 of those deviations, such as come under the general descrip- 

 tion of " malformations," fall into two groups according to 

 the manner in which they have arisen. Some are plainly 

 due to the action of environment, to disturbance by some 

 external factor of the regular growth of the fish. Take, for 

 instance, a case recorded by Barrington in 1768,^ of certain 

 Welsh trout which possessed a vertebral column markedly 

 crooked near the tail. These trout were found in the river 

 Eynion in Cardiganshire, and in that river " only in a small 

 bason of perhaps eight or nine feet deep, which the river 

 Eynion forms after a fall from the rocks." It seems highly 

 probable that the crooked tails were in some way due to 

 the falling water, to injuries caused either by debris dashed 

 into the pool, or by rock-fragments set in motion by swirling 

 eddies. It is seldom, however, that effect can be so aptly 

 linked with cause. 



1 "A Letter to Dr. William Watson, F. R.S., from the Hon. Daines 

 Barrington, F.R.S., on some particular Fish found in Wales." — "Phil. Trans.," 

 vol. Ivii. p. 204, London, 176S. 



