I02 BULL TROUr. 



avidity. Sergeant Harbottle, officer of the Tyne Salmon Fishery, Tynemouth, states that as 

 he was taking- Salmon for the sake of procuring ova in December, 187 1, he caught two Bull 

 Trout, which disgorged Salmon eggs. "By a slight pressure of the hand," he adds, "I 

 squeezed out of their stomachs nearly three wine-glassfulls of Salmon eggs, which would be 

 about two or three thousand in number. These specimens weighed about one pound and a 

 half apiece. It thus becomes a very important question practically to determine in what way 

 the Salmon laws, with regard to this fish, may be altered ; because what has happened in the 

 Coquet, where Salmon have been nearly exterminated, and the Bull Trout have increased, 

 may happen in other rivers, and thus a valuable source of food be diminished. It is also 

 important to determine to what species this Bull Trout belongs. If, as Dr. Gunther thinks, 

 the Tweed Bull Trout, which I suppose is identical with the Coquet fish, is only the Salmon 

 Trout, or Salmo triitta ; then we have this rather curious anomaly, that the same species is 

 both commercially of great value, and at the same time comparatively worthless. No doubt 

 the quality of the flesh of some of the SalmonidcB varies considerably, even in specimens taken 

 oat of the same water ; but there is a much greater difference when the fish inhabit different 

 waters. Let us take the Trout, for instance ; often in the same river one fish may be white 

 in colour, and inferior in quality; another may be pink and well-flavoured. There is not a 

 finer fish perhaps in the whole world than a good-sized Trout from Lough Neagh, with its 

 red flesh and layers of white curd abundant ; but a Trout from another water, where food 

 is scant, is a very poor thing, and its flesh pale and insipid. But what causes should combine 

 to render the Coquet and Tweed fish so very inferior in the quality of, and so different in 

 the colour of its flesh from the ordinary Salmo trutta, it would indeed be difficult to say. 



Mr. Buckland says, "It has been supposed by some that the Sea Trout and Bull Trout 

 are identical. I know the Bull Trout very well indeed, and could pick him out among a 

 thousand other kinds of Salmonidcc. I am certain, therefore, that there is a difference between 

 the ordinary Sea Trout and the Bull Trout." 



Mr. Dunbar, in a letter to me, says, "they are certainly a distinct species; they go by 

 themselves, and breed by themselves." Dr. Gunther writes, "Yarrell's collection of these 

 fishes was chiefly composed of English and Welsh specimens, and he promiscuously named a 

 part 5". trutta, and another 5. criox, generally applying the former name to females (with a 

 shorter head), and the latter to males (which have the head more elongate). However he 

 was perfectly right in directing attention to the shape of the gill-cover, which is very 

 characteristic for the two species, at least in most of the individuals. But he was not aware 

 that numerous variations occur, and that there are specimens of S. tnitta and 5. criox {cam- 

 briais) which have the gill-covers of precisely the same shape." — -(P. 28.) Dr. Gunther, 

 therefore, is of opinion that the 5. criox, or Bull Trout of Yarrell, may be either the Salmo 

 trutta or the 5. cambricus. 



I may mention, with regard to the gill-cover, that Yarrell is certainly in error as to 

 its shape in this fish. In all the four specimens before me the line of junction of the 

 operculum and suboperculum is not "nearly parallel with the axis of the body of the fish," 

 as represented in the vignette at page 5, central figure, but oblique; I can see no difference 

 between the gill-cover of the Bull Trout and that of the Salmon Trout, excepting that perhaps 

 the posterior or vertical margin of the pr^eoperculum is more distinctly waved. I think also 

 that the maxillary, which reaches far beyond the posterior orbit of the eye, is longer than 

 in the Salmon Trout. However, leaving the matter as to species, scientifically considered, 

 undecided, I have thought it right to give a prominent place to this fish ; for whether it 

 be 5. trutta, or, as I was at first inclined to think, a distinct species, the 5. criox of Yarrell, 

 for all practical purposes it must be regarded, especially in the quality of its flesh, as different 

 from any other of the Salmonidcc* 



* This was written before I had received Mr. \V. R. Pape's letter, which will be found further on. 



