The North Country Angler. 23 



CHAP. VIII. 

 Of Trouts. 



WHETHER trouts, I mean the river or 

 burn trouts, are all of one species, I shall not 

 take upon me to determine. In many things they 

 all agree, and in many they differ, in the same 

 rivers, and even in the same pools ; so that if 

 the difference was owing to the water or the food, 

 I could not say any thing against their being of 

 one species. I believe they spawn promiscuously 

 together; the dark spotted scurf, and the golden 

 spotted trout; that which has only a row of 

 bright spots down the middle line on its sides, 

 and that which has also three rows of dark spots 

 on each side, above that line. They are all of 

 much the same shape, have the same number of 

 fins, and in the same places. Whether the spots 

 make any specific difference, let the curious 

 naturalists decide ; I make none, but in their 

 size and goodness. 



And in my opinion, the so-much-esteemed 

 charr, hoth red and white, is only a meer or 

 marsh-trout ; and the colour, perhaps, is owing 

 to the sex. I have taken in several rivers in the 

 North of England, trouts as red, as good, and as 

 well tasted as any charr, and have potted them 

 and dissolved the bones, as those of charr are 

 when potted. 



I have seen many trouts leap at dams about 

 Michaelmas, of several sizes, whose skin has 

 then been of a red or copperish colour, without 



