VARIETIES OF TROUT. 79 



recollect that I once took a grayling in the end 

 of November, in which the ova were so large, 

 as nearly to be ready for protrusion. The 

 fisherman of the Griindtl See, in Styria, in- 

 formed me, that he had seen a fish which he 

 believed to be a mule between the trout and 

 char, the fins of which resembled those of a 

 trout, though the body was in other respects 

 like that of a char. The seasons at which these 

 two species spawn approach nearer to each 

 other; but the char spawns in still and the 

 trout in running water. In general the trout 

 are mature before the char, yet I have seen in 

 the Leopoldstein See, in Styria, a female char, 

 of which the eggs were almost fully developed 

 as early as June: the fisherman of the Griindtl 

 See said, that these peculiar fish were very 

 rare, and that he caught only one in about 

 500 char. It is not, I think, impossible, that 

 it may be an umbla, a fish that might be ex- 

 pected to be found in that deep, cold, Alpine 

 lake, a peculiar species and not a mixed variety. 

 It is a fertile and very curious subject for new 

 experiments, that of crossing the breeds of 

 fishes, and offers a very interesting and un- 



