204 PRINCIPAL FISHING STATIONS. 



there are, besides, many fine pools scattered through 

 the other districts of this county, amounting in 

 the whole to upwards of fifty. 



The principal are, 



OGWEN LAKE, so called from the name of the 

 river issuing from it, meaning no more than the 

 head of the river Ogwen. Opinions vary with 

 respect to the meaning of the word, some sup- 

 posing it to be so named from its foaming de- 

 scent out of the lake, and that it signifies the white 

 fall or foaming stream. But when it is considered 

 that the word Gwen, applied to a woman or to a 

 river, means " fair," and is of the feminine gender, 

 and that many rivers of clear crystal water have 

 that appellation ; it seems not improbable that Og is 

 a corruption of Eog, " Salmon," an old British word 

 little used in North Wales, though in some parts of 

 the south they have no other name for that fish. 

 In pronouncing diphthongs, one of the vowels is fre- 

 quently omitted for the sake of euphony, instead, 

 therefore, of calling this word Eogwen, they said 

 with much more facility Ogwen, " the fair, or bright 

 salmon river," an appellation it richly deserves. 



The lake is well stored with large trout, which in 

 colour and flavour surpass all fish of the kind known 

 in any of the Caernarvonshire lakes. Their hue is 

 bright yellow ; while in other waters they have 

 generally a darker or blackish cast externally, and 

 when dressed are more white internally ; but the 

 Ogwen trout cuts red as salmon in full season. 



