CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE VENDACE, OR VENDIS. 



THE Vendace or Vendis (Oorregonus WillougJibii) is said never to be taken 

 by rod and line. Whether it will ever become sufficiently plentiful for 

 an indisputable decision on such an interesting point I cannot say, but 

 as the fish is an actuality, and, moreover, a most beautiful member of 

 the Salmonidce, I cannot omit mention of it here. I have tasted it, and 

 can at any rate accord it the praise of being meritorious on the table, if 

 not as a sporting fish in the water. 



Sir Wm. Jardine and Dr. Knox seem to have been the instructors of 

 modern ichthyologists, and I shall quote freely from the former chiefly 

 because, as he was a resident of the locality in which the vendace is 

 famous, his evidence is least likely to lead to erroneous conclusions. 

 Yarrell believes that this fish is the Corregonus marceula and the C. albula 

 of Continental writers. 



Although it is said to inhabit the north of Sweden, so far as Great 

 Britain is concerned the fish is only known to inhabit the lochs in the 

 neighbourhood of Loch Maben in Dumfriesshire, and in this district some 

 curious superstitions are prevalent concerning it. The vendace, says 

 Sir William Jardine, "is well known to almost every person in the 

 neighbourhood, and if among the lower classes fish should at any time 

 form the subject of conversation the vendace is immediately mentioned, 

 and the loch regarded with pride as possessing something of great 

 curiosity to visitors, and which is thought not elsewhere to exist. The 

 story that it was introduced into these lochs by the unfortunate Mary 

 Queen of Scots, as mentioned by Pennant in his notice of the Gwyniad, 

 and it is likely that his information was derived from the vicinity is 

 still in circulation. That the fish was introduced from some Continental 

 lake I have little doubt, but would rather attribute the circumstance to 

 some of the religious establishments which at one time prevailed in the 



