68 BRITISH FRESHWATER FISHES 



contents of the stomach ; these proved to be a 

 quantity of shot packed in with bits of newspaper, 

 no doubt a device of the fishermen to add to the 

 weight ; but the walls of the stomach in this 

 " Gillaroo " were quite thin ! • 



According to Mr. Harvie Brown, the Trout of 

 Loch Mulach Corrie in Sutherlandshire are " Gil- 

 laroos." Mr. Eagle Clarke tells me that these are 

 beautiful fish, very deep in the body, and with 

 brilliant red fins. In this lake also there is said to 

 be " a small but apparently adult form about the 

 size of a big Minnow and very rarely got. It may 

 be the young of the so-called Gillaroo, but, if so, it is 

 a curious departure, as it is utterly without par 

 bands." 



Curious deformities may occur, such as an ab- 

 normally short lower jaw ; one of the commonest, 

 found in Trout from many localities, and also in 

 Salmon, Pike, Perch, etc., is a shortening of the 

 snout so that the lower jaw projects ; such fish are 

 termed " Bulldog - nosed Trout." Messrs. Eagle 

 Clarke and Roebuck {Yorkshire Vertebrates) write 

 thus on this subject : *' Remarkable malformations are 

 observed in the Trout of Malham Tarn, and of a 

 beck on the western side of Penyghent. This is 

 manifested in the former by the deficiency of the 

 gill-cover in about one in ev^ery fifteen fish caught — 

 a calculation based upon a statement with which 

 Mr. Walter Morrison has furnished us of the total 

 number caught from 1865 to 1880. In the case of 

 the ' Ground Trout ' of Penyghent, as they are 

 called, Mr. John Foster informs us that the mal- 

 formation consists of a singular projection of the 

 under jaw beyond the upper. These aberrations are 



