114 SALMONID.E. 



as they are nourished with worms, with small fry, or with 

 water flies ; and no one in his senses can doubt, I imagine, that 

 if these fish which have obtained scarlet spots, and become 

 golden-finned and golden- bellied by feeding on shell-fish, or 

 crustaceous-cased insects, were confined upon a regimen of dew- 

 worms or May-flies, they would gradually relapse into their 

 original colouring. 



Nor can it be supposed, I think, judging from analogy, but 

 that the Gillaroo Trout, kept permanently in situations where 

 it could never find either shell-fish, or any hard edible substances, 

 would gradually lose the distinctive hardness of its stomach, as 

 well as its characteristic colouring. The probability is, that the 

 young fry of a finger's length, spoken of by Sir Humphrey, 

 would lose the distinction individually; and I do not at all 

 conceive it likely that the characteristic w^ould suridve through 

 two generations from the largest adult. 



While I am writing on this point, I will cite a fact, though it 

 belongs with greater propriety to the history of another fish, 

 the Greatest Lake Trout {Salmo Amethystus), when describing 

 which, it will be noticed more fully. This is simply that in the 

 same lakes, Huron and Superior, this same fish exists in three 

 diff'erent states of colour, so totally dissimilar, that it is sup- 

 posed by the French inhabitants of the shores to be three 

 distinct fishes, and is known by three distinct names, according 

 to the situations in which it is found, and by which its colouring 

 is evidently affected. 



Drawings of the fish in two of these stages are now lying 

 before me, and will be presented to my readers under the proper 

 head ; here, it will be sufficient to state that, but for the shape 



