14 THB TROUT. 



twice as much as both the others put together, though the bulk of 

 food actually swallowed by them was by no means so great. 



The largest trout I have ever heard or read of is mentioned by 

 Mr. Yarrell, in his truly interesting work on British Fishes, a work 

 every angler should possess though he lived on bread and water 

 for a month to save the means of purchasing it. This monster of 

 the trout race, Mr. Yarrell mentions, was caught on the 1 1th of 

 January, 1822, in a little stream not more than ten feet wide, 

 branching from the Avon, at the back of Castle-street, Salisbury, 

 whose weight, on being taken out of the water, amounted to 25 

 pounds. He also states that in March, 1835, a male trout of 15 

 pounds was caught in a net ; and that on the 14th of April follow- 

 ing another of 11 pounds weight was also captured in the same 

 manner ; of which latter fish, there is a well executed engraving 

 ic the second volume of Mr. Yarrell's work. The same writer 

 also mentions that he had on record then before him of six trout 

 taken by minnow spawning which weighed together 54 pounds, 

 the largest of them 13 pounds. Stephen Oliver, the younger, in his 

 Recollections of Fly Fishing, mentions a great trout taken in the 

 neighbourhood of Great Driffield, in September, 1832, that mea- 

 sured 21 inches in length, 21 inches in girth, and weighed 17 

 pounds. And it also appears from the Worcester Journal for June, 

 1838, that a gentleman from Hereford, bad just then killed a trout 

 weighing 11 pounds 13 ounces, in the stomach of which were 

 found 53 full sized minnows. This was a Triton among the min- 

 nows with a vengeance ! 



The way in which the great disproportion of the size of 

 trout, in proportion to their age in the same waters, seems to be 

 best accounted for, is the circumstance of their frequently spawn- 

 ing before they reach the weight of three ounces; for it can hard- 

 ly be expected that the offspring of so puny a parent should, 

 let them live as long as they may, attain any thing like 

 the same dimensions as the progeny of such giant trouts as those 

 we have just before alluded to ; and notwithstanding the progeny 

 of very small trout may like many of the human race far outstrip 

 their parents in magnitude, yet it might almost as naturally be ex- 

 pected that a frog was capable of blowing himself out to the size 

 of an ox, as that the offspring of a trout of two or three ounces 

 weight should attain any thing like corresponding dimensions to 

 those of one weighing upwards of six or seven pounds, to say 



