WELL-MENDED KELTS. 5 



ravenous things, and in their feediiDg-habits and play when 

 hooked much resemble pike. In due course they return to the 

 sea, where, owing to the abundance of food at their disposal, they 

 quickly regain their good looks — form well rounded, sides 

 silvery, and back a steely blue — and at the end of a period 

 varying from a few months to perhaps as much as two years, 

 return to the rivers mature salmon — and history repeats itself. 

 Sometimes they recover their condition while still in the river, 

 and then are termed "well-mended kelts." 



The Varieties of Trout may be broadly divided into two 

 great classes — those which resemble salmon in their habits, 

 and are known as sea-trout, and those which live habitually 

 in fresh water. Dr. Day has, I believe, come to the conclusion 

 that there is only one species of trout, and that the differ- 

 ences in appearance between trout taken from various waters 

 are owing simply to local conditions. Sea-trout may be either 

 brown trout which have acquired migratory habits, or — which 

 seems more probable to me — brown trout are sea-trout which 

 have lost the migratory habit. 



It is the tendency of all trout whose dietary principally 

 consists of fish [e.g., Thames trout) to become silvery; and, on 

 the other hand, sea-trout which have been a considerable length 

 of time in fresh water — as may be presumed when they are 

 found any great distance from the sea — usually lose their 

 silvery dress, and approach fresh-water trout very nearly in 

 their colourings and markings. 



In this book I have divided the fish according to the manner 

 in which they are caught. In the first place, we have 

 chalk-stream trout — fat, lazy, but shy fish, which feed princi- 

 pally on flies, or the larvae of flies, and are found mostly 

 in the chalk streams of the Southern counties of England. 



Next I have placed moorland or mountain trout. These are 

 found in the rocky brooks and rivers of Devonshire, Derbyshire, 

 and Wales, in the moorland streams of the North-country, in 

 most parts of Ireland, and in the wilder parts of Scotland. 

 These little fish — they are remarkable more for numbers than 

 weight — do not get food enough to attain to any great size. 



Then there are trout which dwell in lakes. Of these there 



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