l64 THE SEA-TROUT 



trout. I can adduce very little definite evidence in support of these 

 presumptions, but I am aware that at Luss Hatchery on one occasion 

 the ova of certain female sea-trout were fertilised with the milt of male 

 salmon, there being no male sea-trout at the moment available for the 

 purpose. These ova thus fertilised took precisely the same time to 

 hatch out as uncrossed salmon ova deposited in the hatchery on the 

 same day, and to all appearance, up to the time of distributing them as 

 fry in the streams, the alevins were just the same in colour, and differed 

 as much in their general aspect from the alevins hatched from pure 

 sea-trout eggs, as did the uncrossed salmon alevins. The manager of 

 the hatchery bears me out in the supposition that any cross between 

 sea-trout and trout would, at any rate in Loch Lomond, result in a 

 mio-ratorv fish indistingruishable from a sea-trout. He often uses the 

 one kind to serve the other without anything but sea-trout fry apparently 

 resulting, and I am inclined to think, as trout and sea-trout commonly 

 spawn together in nature, that this is the main factor which results in 

 streams which arc favourite spawning haunts of sea-trout holding but 

 few common trout, and these of a poor class. 



The reader will make up his own mind in view of all that I have 

 written in these pages as to whether there is only one species of trout 

 in British waters or not. I can only point to this vital matter of inter- 

 breeding as being the strongest possible proof of trout and sea-trout 

 (excluding the "bull trout") being so closely related as to be to all 

 intents and purposes indistinguishable the one from the other. 



The whole period of spawning, which is an intermittent process in 

 the case of the sea-trout, as it is in the case of the salmon, cannot be 

 calculated with any degree of certainty either for the male or female 

 fish. Mr. Malloch puts it for the individual sea-trout at " from two to 

 four days," and for the individual salmon at " from three to fourteen 

 days," and one need not question his accuracy of observation. But in 

 the spawning season of 19 14 a ripe male sea-trout, whose milt was used 



