217 



Lochleven Trout, Plate VI and VII, fig. 1 au<l 2. 

 (For synonymy, sec p. 190, anle.) 



It Las, from almost immoniorial time, been a subject of argument as to wliether 

 the Locblcvcn trout should be considered a sjoecies distinct from the burn trout 

 {Salmo fario) ; and also, supposing it to be a distinct species, whether it might 

 not be the descendant of a marine form which, having ascended the river Leven 

 and obtained access into the loch from the sea, has been unable to return there. 

 Fortunately for investigators, in the year 1873 Sir James Maitland turned his 

 attention at Howietoun to fish-culture, the race of trout which he selected for 

 stock was that of Lochleven, from which he was only 25 miles distant and at 

 about the same elevation. 



The question of whether the Lochleven trout is a local race or a distinct 

 species, is one which is of considerable practical importance to the fish-culturists 

 of this country, quite irrespective of its scientific interests. If it is a species 

 distinct from our brook trout, its introduction into our streams and dissemination 

 through our fresh waters, would be a great source of hybridization with our 

 indigenous forms, and such would tend towards sterility of the offspring. On the 

 other hand, if it is merely a local race, its crossing with the brook trout would be 

 merely the inter-breeding between two varieties of one species, which, instead of 

 being a cause of sterility, becomes more commonly a means of improving a 

 breed. 



In Sir Robert Sibbald's History of Kinross-sMre, 1710, Ave read :— " Loch Leven 

 abounds with fine fish, such as the salmonds,* taken in the summer. . . . The 

 gray trout or bill trout, some of them as big as a salmond ; grayish skinned and 

 red fished, a foot long, taken all the year over. Cendue or Camdue in Irish, 

 ' blackhead,' having a black spot on the top of its head, is fat, big as a Dunbar 

 herring, red fished, much esteemed." 



Pennant, in 1769, visited Loch Leven, and observed: — "The fish of this lake 

 are pike, small perch, fiiae eels, and most excellent trouts, the best and the reddest 

 I ever saw; the largest about six lb. in weight" (Journ. 4th ed. p. 69). _ In his 

 British Zoology, 1776, he did not refer to any distinct species existing in Loch 

 Leven ; but after remarking on the large trouts of Lough Neagh in Ireland, locally 

 termed Buddaghs, he continued, " Trouts (probably of the same species) are also 

 taken in Hulse-water, a lake in Cumberland, of a much superior size to those of 

 Lough Neagh. These are supposed to be the same with the trout of the lake of 

 Geneva, a fish I have eaten more than once, and think but a very indiflferent one " 

 (iv, p. 299). 



The Rev. A. Smith, Statistical Account of Kinross, 1793, remarked that, " In 

 Loch Leven are all the diiferent species of hill, burn, and muir trout that arc to 

 be met with in Scotland, evidently appearing from the diversity of manner in 

 which they are spotted ; yet all three diff"erent kinds, after being two years in the 

 loch and arriving at three-quarters of a lb. or one lb. in weight, are red in the flesh, 

 as all the trout of every kind in the loch are, except, perhaps, those newly brought 

 down by the floods, or such as are sickly. The silver-gray trout, with about four 

 or five spots on the middle of each side, is apparently the original native of the 



* The term salmond was employed so vaguely by some authors as applicable to both the salmon 

 and sea-trout, that the simple name being used is hardly sufficient evidence of the presence of 

 Salmo salar. Thus Sir E. Sibbald, in his Scotia Illustrata, 1684, divided salmon from salmoneta, 

 and referred to the latter as follows :— " Salmoneta, qui nostratibus the Salmon-trout " (p. 25). He 

 also observed, " The Gray trout, or Bill trout, some of them as large as a salmond ;" but, as I shall 

 show, this gi-ay stage is not the livery of old specimens, and none liave been recorded over ten lb. 

 in weight, it would seem he referred to sea-trout; again, silvery trout in Scotch lochs are often 

 classed as sea trout. 



