1864.] DAVY ON THE SALMONID^. 449 



book, are given in evidence, justifying, as it seems to me, the con- 

 clusion : — On the 27th of August, fishing in the river that flows 

 out of Morsgael Lake, in the Lews, I took with the fly nineteen 

 sea-trouts, varying in weight from half a pound to two pounds i.nd 

 a half. They were all fresh run from the sea. Many had the sea- 

 louse on them. The larger fish were full of milt and roe, 

 both nearly mature. The smaller had the roe and milt very small, 

 and so not likely to breed that year. The males and females were 

 nearly of the same number. The following year, fishing in the 

 lake just mentioned, and in the same month, viz., August 31st, 

 I took with the fly forty-four sea-trout. Of these, twelve were 

 males, the rest females ; of the latter, twenty-two had roe nearly 

 full size. The other ten were much smaller fish ; each was 

 about a quarter of a pound, in excellent condition, and yet their 

 ovaries were so very small that they might have escaped detection 

 had they not been carefully sought for. Of the males, all but two 

 had the milt large ; these two were also fish of about a quarter of 

 a pound. Their testes had the appearance of fine threads. The 

 " finnick," such as I have seen it in the Lews of the Hebrides, 

 and in the fresh rivers, and lakes of Kerry, Donegal, and 

 Connamara, is the same, I believe, as the whiting of the Eden 

 and the Solway and the smaller sewen of the Welsh rivers. It is a 

 beautiful and bright fish, rarely exceeding half a pound in weight, 

 and is of great delicacy of flavor as an article of food. The color 

 of its muscles is light-pink, very much lighter than that of the 

 muscles of the salmon or of the full grown sea-trout, when in its best 

 condition. The light silvery lustre of its abdominal portion, 

 equally remarkable in the adults when fresh from the sea, fairly 

 entitles it to the name of white-trout, as it is called in Ireland, 

 to distinguish it from the brown-trout. There seems to be as 

 little reason to doubt that they spawn on their second advent 

 from the sea, as that they are not sufl&ciently advanced to perform 

 that office on their first arrival. Their spawning-time is believed 

 to be earlier than that of the salmon, about three weeks or a month, 

 and is mostly, at least in the Lews, late in September. There is 

 a third question which I beg to propose respecting these fish, — the 

 salmon, the sea-trout, the common trout, and, I may add, the charr. 

 Do they breed yearly or in alternate years? The generally 

 received opinion, I believe, is that their fertility is continuous from 

 year to year. From such observations as I have made, I am dis- 

 posed to doubt the correctness of this conclusion, and to infer that 



