2o8 MALACOPTERYGII. — SALMONID^. 



probably tlie fishing Eagle or Osprey. A curious 

 anecdote recorded by the author of " Wild Sports 

 of the West," would intimate that victory does 

 not always fall to the same side. " Some years 

 since a herdsman, on a very sultry day in July, 

 while looking for a missing sheep, observed an 

 Eagle posted on a bank that overhung a pool. 

 Presently the bird stooped and seized a Salmon, 

 and a violent struggle ensued ; when the herd 

 reached the spot, he found the Eagle pulled under 

 water by the strength of the fish, and the calm- 

 ness of the day, joined to drenched plumage, ren- 

 dered him unable to extricate himself. With a 

 stone the peasant broke the Eagle's pinion, and 

 actually secured the spoiler and his victim, for he 

 found the Salmon dying in his grasp." A grey- 

 haired peasant familiar with flood and field told 

 the same writer that he had remarked the Eagles 

 while engaged in fishing. They were wont to 

 choose a small ford upon a rivulet, and, posted on 

 either side, would wait patiently for the Salmon 

 to pass over the shallows. Their watch was never 

 fruitless ; — many a Sahuon he had seen, in its 

 transit from the sea to the lake above the ford, 

 suddenly transferred from its native element to 

 the Eagle's wild aerie in the lofty cliff that beetles 

 over the romantic waters of Glencullen.* 



We shall close our notice of this interesting 

 Family with a species scarcely less valued by 

 anglers than the Salmon, the speckled Trout, 

 {Salmofario, Linn.), one of the most crafty, vora- 

 cious, and swift of our fluviatile fishes. 



According to Alexandre Dumas,! Trout are 



* Wild Sports of the West, i. 195. 

 t New Jiport. Mag. N. S. iii. 242. 



