Chapt. xvi. Trout i'n the NeUghtrrUa. 191 



examined the fish, on the 22nd October, 1 87."», and found that 

 much of the vermilion in the spots was lost, and on the 25th 

 November nunc waa traceable. This was certainly a Lochleven 

 Trout It waa Bent home by me under seal, was examined before 

 the Linnsean Society, and is figured in Dr. Day's " Fishes of India" 

 as a Lochleven Trout Trout not having been seen alive on the 

 Neilgherries before, or traced since, by any one that was prepared 

 to depose to an adipose tin. and that, too, in spite of much effort, 

 some have suggested that this trout came to me not from Pykara, 

 but from Lochleven. Peunel says, however, that in Lochleven the 

 trout have no red spots, and the presence of red spots in this 

 individual would seem to be the result of its being bred in the 

 clear Pykara stream. The first freshness and subsequent fading 

 of the vermilion spots should also serve to satisfy the sceptical 

 that the specimen was caught where it was said to be caught. 

 These two facts satisfied me. And a friend who saw the fish with 

 the vermilion spots fresh was so satisfied that he backed his 

 belief with coin, the crucial test! Still a Commissioner there, 

 who was a keen fisherman, made every effort to discover more of 

 them, but failed. He wished to put them, a lake trout, into the 

 Ootacamund Lake, for their better protection and growth. If they 

 could be got into a lake, these trout would flourish better and 

 be safer than in the Pykara stream, where they are liable to be 

 poached; and it is the greatest pity that all the energy and pains- 

 taking perseverance which brought out the fry should have ended 

 in putting them into the wrong place. If they had only been put 

 into the Ootacamund Lake to begin with, and had it all to 

 themselves, the carp and tench being pitched into the sea, what 

 fishing we should have had there by this time, and what a source 

 from which to stock the other Neilgherry Lakes with acclimatized 

 trout. 



Possibly they were put in the l'ykara River under the impres- 

 sion that trout cannot breed except in a stream, running water 

 icing necessary to the sufficient oxygenation of the ova. This idea 

 is h.M. I believe, by not a few. Doubtless trout will not breed 

 except in a stream, if they can help it, but it is not that they 

 cannot. It is only because their instincts tell them to prefer the 

 stream, for the very same reason as a Mahseer's instincts, and we 

 may say a salmon's als... impel it to seek the higher streams, tor the 



