THE TROUT. 39 



countries, from the small Welsh trout of half a pound to 

 the giants of some foreign rivers, which occasionally reach 

 a weight of twenty or thirty pounds; but the general 

 run of fish in trout-streams averages from half a pound to 

 a pound and a half. In waters where they are very 

 numerous, the number caught below half a pound will, in 

 ordinary cases, far exceed those caught above that weight. 

 It is an almost universal rule that where trout are large 

 they are scarce. 



The age which trout generally attain has been a long 

 disputed, and is as yet an undecided question among 

 naturalists and anglers. Experiments have been made in 

 ponds to settle this point ; but such tests are not quite satis- 

 factory, in as much as they are, in some degree, artificial 

 contrivances, and place the fish out of their usual haunts, 

 habits, and modes of living. There can be little doubt, 

 we apprehend, that the longevity of the trout varies with 

 the country, and the nature of the stream it inhabits. 



We shall here recite two instances relative to the age 

 of this fish, which have been noticed in other books on 

 fishing. The first is the statement that a trout died in 

 August, 1809, which had been in a well at Dumbarton 

 castle for eight-and-twenty years. The other account is 

 taken from the Westmorland Advertiser of some years ago. 

 " Fifty-years since, the proprietor of Bond-hall, near 

 Broughton, in Furness, when a boy, placed a male Fell- 

 beck trout in a well, in the orchard belonging to his 

 family, where it remained till last week, when it departed 

 this life, not through any sickness or infirmity attendant 

 on old age, but from want of its natural element, water 

 the severe drought having dried up the spring a cir- 

 cumstance which has not happened for the last sixty 

 years. His lips and gills were perfectly white, although 



