FISHES. 237 



is a variety of these, not a distinct species, called in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Lough Neagh the Gillaroo Trout, and said by 

 common rumour to have a gizzard like that of a fowl. This 

 notion must have originated in common observers having mis- 

 taken for a gizzard the skin of the stomach, which becomes 

 hardened, possibly from the large numbers of a univalve shell 

 {Paludina impurd) used as food. The Great Lake Trout 

 sometimes exceeds a yard in length and thirty pounds in 

 weight. The large individuals are known at Lough Neagh by 

 the name of Buddaghs, and the smaller as Dolachans. 



Among the delightful fictions of the Arabian Nights' Enter- 

 tainments is one of a lake, in whose waters were lishes of four 

 different colours. Local causes seem to act upon the colour of 

 the common Trout, so as to produce effects scarcely less sur- 

 prising. This fish is distinguished for its bright and speckled 

 skin ; but we have seen, at Lough Katrine, Trout so black, 

 that they seemed as if they had gone into mourning. The 

 author of " Wild Sports of the West" mentions a similar cir- 

 cumstance witli regard to the Trout of a small lake in the 

 county of Monaghan, the water being bounded on one shore 

 by a bog, and on the opposite by a dry and gravelly surface. 

 On the bog side the Trout are dark and ill-shaped ; on the 

 other they are beautiful and sprightly, like those inhabiting 

 rapid and sandy streams. " Narrow as the lake is, the fish 

 appear to confine themselves to their respective limits — the 

 red Trout being never found upon the bog moiety of the lake, 

 nor the black where the under service is hard gravel." 



But the brief space which we can devote to the Salmonidce 

 renders it needful that we should proceed at once to the most 

 important of the family, the Salmon (Salmo salar). 



During the floods of winter and early spring, this fish 

 descends the river to the sea, lean and ill-conditioned, and 

 returns in a few months, plump, well-conditioned, and greatly 

 increased in size, from the abundance of food derived from 

 small Crustacea, fishes, and other marine animals and their ova. 

 It is on their return from the sea for the purpose of spawning 

 that the Salmon are taken. This occurs during the summer 

 and autumn months, the precise time being different in different 

 rivers. 



Impelled onwards by the instinct which prompts this 

 migration, the Salmon endeavours to surmount all obstacles 

 that lie in its course, and flings itself over ledges of rock ten 



