216 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



The fourth variety is a small kind, plentiful in Ossyth, in Sutherland. 

 It is thickly formed, the fins of the usual length, and tail much forked ; 

 upper parts of an olive brown colour ; a light yellow belly. The upper 

 two-thirds of the body are covered with large round black spots in a pale 

 circle. 



In the fifth and last of the varieties referred to the body is com- 

 paratively short, but very deep ; the fins are short and tench-like, and 

 the head is remarkable for its great length. This fish is from lochs of 

 the river Laxford, which runs from Loch Strach. The colours are not 

 very bright; the spots are large and widely apart; the flesh white and 

 dace-like. Couch remarks that from the divergence from the ordinary 

 Salmo fario of the formation of the head bones, it might be considered 

 a new species. But I do not thus consider it. I have seen specimens 

 of this trout, and although the differences noted unquestionably exist, I 

 am by no means ready to award it the dignity of separate position. 



The various distinctions between the trouts referred to by Sir William 

 Jardine may be added to in the case of the " Botling " trout of Wast- 

 water, Cumberland, which, according to Tarrell, has been taken of 121b., 

 and has been identified by Dr. Davey as a trout, it is a fierce and 

 voracious fish, and ascends the lake streams each autumn, attacking the 

 other members of the salmonidae with incredible ferocity. It is in shape 

 a short, thick fish, whose girth is commonly in excess of its length. The 

 ordinary lake trout resembles it very closely, and its dentition is said to 

 be similar. 



Besides the snub-nosed species of trout mentioned in a former para- 

 graph, there are other peculiar deviations from the natural order of 

 things chronicled by observers, which I may mention. So very long ago 

 as the twelfth century Giroldus Cambrensis notices a peculiar sort of 

 trout with only one eye the right. This curious half-blind fish was 

 found in the Llyn-y-Cwm of Wales, and the same was said of the perch 

 and eels found in the game pool. This story has had the advantage of 

 corroboration of one or two reputable writers and observers, viz., Mr. 

 Hansard (" Trout and Salmon Fishing in Wales,") and the Hon. D. Bar- 

 rington. 



Trout with remarkable distortions of the spinal column into an arch at 

 the region of the dorsal fin are reported from this same lake. Of course 

 I am unable to verify the truth of this, or account on the score, say, of 

 geological formation, for the abnormal development of the fish. The 

 fact remains, however. The river Eynion, in Cardiganshire, according to 

 Dr. Fleming, furnishes equally strange distorted fishes, and his assertions 

 are surely uncontrovertible. Couch, equally veracious, says he obtained 

 specimens of humpbacked trout from Caldew, in Cumberland, " where 



