COMMON TROUT. 113 



wattles, (Sno TTTepa aXeKTpvovoi; viro to« KaWeoij Tr£(puKOTa.) ; they have a reed six feet long, and a 

 fishing line about the same length ; they drop this lure upon the water, and the fish being 

 attracted by the colour, becomes extremely excited, {oi,aTpov/j,evo<;) proceeds to meet it, anticipating 

 from its beautiful appearance a most delicious repast ; but, as with extended mouth it seizes 

 the lure, it is held fast by the hook, and being captured meets with a very sorry entertain- 

 ment." 



"The practice of fishing with a fly," says Couch, "has been thought almost peculiarly 

 English, and of ancient date in this country, and Duhamel in France copies all that he has 

 got to say of it from Walton and Cotton ; but in both these particulars there is reason for 

 doubt. The Book of St. Albans gives some directions for what it terms 'dubbing,' a practice 

 referred to by Izaak Walton, and which in some distant degree bears a likeness to the modern 

 method of fly-fishing. But neither does this dubbing with a fly obtain a principal place in 

 this old treatise, the very title of which appears to limit it to 'fysshynge with an angle' or 

 earthworm ; nor was the patriarch of the art, Izaak Walton, much better versed in it ; for it 

 is to his friend Charles Cotton we are chiefly indebted for what afterwards grew to bs a 

 new phase in the art." 



"The Common Trout," as Yarrell says, "is too widely diffused and too generally known 

 to make any enumeration of particular localities necessary." This is no doubt generally true, 

 nevertheless Trout are subject to great variety, especially in colouration, and some localities 

 are infinitely superior to others as Trout-feeding waters. The Thames Trout are rightly 

 justly celebrated ; those of Lough Neagh are not to be surpassed by any fish in the world ; 

 the flesh is firm and brick-red, the layers of curd abundant, and I do not think any one can 

 have a good idea of what a Trout is, unless he has handled and eaten the speckled beauties 

 from Lough Neagh. Of the Thames Trout Mr. Manley shall speak: — ^"I hold," he says, "that 

 a well-conditioned fish of this class is one of the most beautiful objects in animated nature. 

 His symmetry and his colour are unexceptional. He is more beautiful both in form and colour 

 than the most beautiful Salmon that ever ran up fresh from the sea, and when contemplated 

 by his captor immediately on being 'banked,' is a richer feast for the eyes than the prettiest 

 Salmo salar that Hampshire Avon, Severn, Tay, Tyne, Thurso, or Shannon ever produced. 

 Salmo fario of the Thames v. Salmo salar all the world over ; the latter charmingly symmetrical 

 and silvery as you will, and beyond compare more beautiful than all silvery fishes ; but the 

 former resplendent with all the hues of the rainbow, and others to boot; yet not a mere 

 gaudy creature, like the brilliant fish of the Mediterranean, but with a harmony of bright 

 colours which subdue but do not extinguish one another, and such as no artist could have 

 conceived and few can imitate." — {A^oles on Fish and Fishing, p. 131.) 



What Mr. Manley thus enthusiastically but rightly says of the Thames Trout, is every 

 whit true of the Lough Neagh fish of Ireland. 



The Trout, though a bold and voracious fish, is at the same time excessively shy, cautious, 

 and cunning ; hence great skill and patience are required to insure success on the part of the 

 angler. 



The River Trout is, as I have already said, subject to much variation as to colour 

 as well as to small structural differences. Two forms deserve particular attention. One form, 

 with fifty-seven or fifty-eight vertebrae, is found in Central Europe and the southern parts of 

 England ; the other, which has fifty-nine or sixty vertebrae, occurs in the northern parts of 

 Europe, some parts of Scandinavia, Scotland, and Ireland. Now these two forms, the one more 

 decidedly northern, the other southern, are thus distinguished by Dr. Giinther as Salmo fario 

 gaimardi* and Salmo fario aiisonii.'\ In Cumberland, however, as Dr. Giinther tells us, at least 



* From the name of a writer, P. Gaimard, author of a work entitled Voyages de la Commission scientifique du 

 Nord pendant les Anne'es 1835-6, 1838-40. 



f From the Latin writer Ausonius, who would be acquainted with the southern form. 



Q 



