SEA TROUT— SALMON-TROUT, THE WHITLING. 



159 



Fig. 32. Head, natural size, of 

 female whitling, 8-2 inches long, 

 otecal appendages 50. 



Fig. 33. Head, natural size, of male wliitling, 

 11 inches long, crecal appendages 40. 



The Whitling * or Whiting of Cumberland has many local names, being the 

 grilse stage of the salmon-trout (see p. 154). Like the salmon-grilse it has proved 

 a fruitful .source of contention to ichthyologists and others. f In July, 1885, the 

 Rev. W. Jackson, M.A., kindly sent me from Carlisle a series of these fi.shes, 

 furnishing a most complete chain of examples passing from S. trutta on one hand 

 to 5'. fario on the other. They were individually between 7 and 11 inches in 

 length, and .seven of them clearly belonged to the white trout, Salmon albus, of 

 Pennant, which is also known as Sprod.X The following is a brief summary of these 

 fish. No. 1, male, 11 inches long, ciBcal pylori 10, length of head 5^ in the entire 

 length, three teeth on hind margin of head of vomer, 12 along its body in a zig- 

 zag line. Silvery with black spots above the lateral-line, and two irregular rows 

 below it : dorsal fin with a few black spots along its summit and base : pectoral dai-k 

 edged, the other fins diapihanous. No. 2, female, 9-5 inches long, cascal pylori 

 46 ; length of head 5 the entire length. Teeth on vomer as in last. Silvery 

 with black spots, dorsal fin dai'k-spotted and caudal black edged. Many sea lice 



* Stoddart observed of the Est, that " in summer a few sea trout, answering the description 

 of whitliugs, and weighing from 1 lb. to 3 lb., push their way up, and are generally killed. After 

 them, in July and August, succeed the herlings, and lastly, the bills or bulls." ..." The far- 

 famed bull trout of Tarras, a tributary of the Esk, were merely bills, and, when ' ta'en in 

 season,' herlings or whitens, the latter being another local name for the same description of fish " 

 (p. 230). 



t Pennant, in 1770, remarked that " this species migrates out of the sea into the river Ksk in 

 Cumherlinid, from July to September, and is called from its colour the U'liilinrj." He observed 

 upon their having the sea louse adhering to them on their first appearance, that they possess both 

 milt and spawn, while " this is the fish called by the Scots phinoo," and never exceeds a foot in 

 length. I have already shown that although Turton, Fleming, Jardine, Richardson, Giinther, and 

 Couch have considered it a distinct species ; Sir Humphry Davy, Agassiz, Jenyns, Yarrell, Parnell, 

 White, and Thompson held it to be the grilse stage of salmon-trout. Parnell, in 1838, believed the ,S'. 

 albus to be nothing more than the young of some migratory trout, and having remained several weeks 

 on the banks of Solway Firth, inspecting several hundred specimens and carefully dissecting two 

 hundred, he found them to differ exceedingly from one another in their structure, the number of 

 their scales, the colour of their flesh, and the form and arrangement of the lateral spots. He 

 remarked that shortly after entering rivers they lose their silvery appearance, and the flesh, which 

 had previously had a reddish tinge and a delicate flavour, now becomes white and insipid, and the 

 fish soon assumes an unwholesome appearance. They return to the sea in January or February, 

 and are sold in Edinburgh as Lammasmen. Hamilton, Naturul History of British Fishes, 1843, 

 also held that " Ichthyologists are now agreed it {S. albus) is nothing more than the salmon-trout 

 after being for a time in the sea and returning to fresh water, and in this state they are called 

 herlings or whitlings, sometimes phinocks." Fishermen have likewise considered them to be the 

 young of the sahnon-trout. Thus Mr. Johnstone (1824) deposed before the Salmon Commissioners that 

 " they are called herliiir/s on the Scotch side of the Solway; they are called whitinps on the English 

 side ; they are called sometimes herlings and sometimes irldtlinijs at Berwick ; they are called 

 wMtelitKjs on the Tay, and finnocks in the north of Scotland." While Lord Home, as stated by 

 Yarrell, observed that " the whitling in the Tweed was the salmon-trout (.S'. cumbricus or eriox), 

 not the young of the bull trout (.S. trutta), which now go by the name of ' trouts ' simply." 



; A correspondent of Frank Buckland observed that " the flesh of the sprod, or smelt 

 {Sidmo iilbus) or herhng is white, that of the mort (S. tnUta) is pink." 



