234 TROUTS. 



small size, were remarkable for beautiful shape and excellent 

 flavour. 



It is a curious fact, that the loughs where the party 

 angled, though situate in the same valley, and divided only 

 by a strip of moorland not above fifty yards across, united 

 by the same rivulet, and in depth and soil at bottom,* to 

 all appearance, precisely similar, should produce fish as 

 different from each other as it is possible for those of the 

 same species to be. In the centre lake, the trout are dull, 

 ill-shapen, and dark-coloured ; the head large, the body lank, 

 and, though of double size, compared to their neighbours, 

 are killed with much less opposition. In the adjacent 

 loughs, their hue is golden and pellucid, tinted with spots 

 of a brilliant vermilion. The scales are bright, the head 

 small, the shoulder thickj and from their compact shape, 

 they prove themselves, when hooked, both active and vigorous. 

 At table they are red and firm, and their flavour is particu- 

 larly fine while the dark trout are white and flaccid, and 

 have the same insipidity of flavour which distinguishes a spent 

 from a healthy salmon. The red trout seldom exceed a 

 herring-size, and in looking through the contents of the 

 baskets, which amounted to at least twelve dozen, I could 

 only find two fish which weighed above a pound. 



The dark trout, however, from their superior size, are 

 more sought after by the mountain fishermen. They rarely 

 are taken of a smaller weight than a pound, and sometimes 

 have been killed, and particularly with a worm, or on a 

 night-line, of a size little inferior to that of a moderate 

 salmon. 



The fishing party determined that Antony's account of the 

 otters being very numerous about those lakes, was perfectly 

 correct. Their paths between the waters were much beaten, 

 and the spraints* of the animal fresh and frequent. 



* I never observed the effect of bottom soil upon the quality of fish 

 so strongly marked as in the trout taken in a small lake in the county of 

 Monaghan. The water is a long irregular sheet, of no great depth one 

 shore bounded by a bog, the other by a dry and gravelly surface. On the 

 bog side, the trout are of the dark and shapeless species peculiar to mooiy 

 loughs while the other affords the beautiful and sprightly variety, 

 generally 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 Hack 

 where the under surface is hard gravel. f Traces. 



