I30 



THE SEA-TROUT 



young fish attacked a natural minnow. In each the ovaries were 

 considerably developed and had already attained a length of some two 

 inches, though the egg pellets were yet very minute. Clearly, then, 

 they had not spawned (else their ova, if visible at all, would have been 

 hardly apparent), and the appearance of the ovaries rather suggested 

 that they would spawn for the first time in autumn when they had 

 re-ascended from the estuary in one of the later months. 



I shall now submit such evidence as I possess for my belief that 

 some whitling at least do spawn on this their earliest and first return 

 to fresh water, and in this matter I may remark I am also indebted to 

 the valuable co-operation of Mr. Hutton. 



While engaged collecting sea-trout eggs in the spawning season of 

 19 14 for the purpose of stocking Luss Hatchery I kept a close watch 

 to see if any fish engaged in spawning had the general characteristic 

 appearance of a whitling. Out of 247 fish actually handled very few 

 were so like whitling as to be unquestionably whitling, but, on 26th 

 November, one of the men who knew what I was searching for, handed 

 me a fish from the net as to which, it might be said, there was no 

 superficial doubt whatever. It was a female fish, 13 j inches in length, 

 bright and silvery, from which the scales came off readily in handling 

 and were scraped off with ease. The fish was ripe and when stripped 

 of her eggs weighed 8 ounces. The eggs had a curiously immature 

 appearance, they were so small ; but the fish was obviously on the redds 

 for the purpose of spawning and the eggs were as readily and success- 

 fully fertilised as the larger eggs of larger fish. They were also 

 apparently of fair average number. I sent some of the scales to Mr. 

 Hutton for examination. His report, which I have no reason to 

 question, showed that the fish had spent four years' residence in fresh 

 water and had been about three months in the sea. In other words it had 

 descended as a smolt in spring and was now, as a whitling, spawning 

 on its first return to fresh water in the same year. The reproduction of 



