15: 



THE SEA-TROUT 



watched closely for some time a particular fish will be seen poising 

 itself amid the foam of the pool, sometimes the head alone, but often 

 the head and pectoral fins, being out of water, facing the fall. Then 

 the fish disappears for a few seconds and one may expect it, and not 

 another fish, to be the next to leap. If it fails to surmount the fall and 

 is swept back into the pool, it will swim down to slacker water at the 

 tail of the pool where it rests for a little before making another effort. 

 It is quite easy to identify particular fish even when there are numbers 

 leaping. There is always some difference in size, shape, or colour 

 which distinguishes one from another. 



It is an open question whether salmon or sea-trout are the more 

 persevering travellers to the upper waters. I think that if there is a 

 sufficient volume of water the salmon will push furthest up the main 

 stream; but where there is no steady flow the sea-trout only will attain 

 the higher reaches. In the greater river systems sea-trout very often 

 turn aside into the first suitable tributaries they come to. I have heard 

 the theory promulgated that just as sea-trout will not proceed far out 

 to sea so they prefer not to travel far inland, and the theorist placed his 

 inland limit at 30 miles. How much of truth ther^ may be in this I am 

 not prepared to say, but I cannot conceive of there being any fixed 

 natural law in such a matter.^ 



In normal states of the river and in ordinary daylight I think sea- 

 trout are not fish that care to expose themselves in open water. They 

 certainly do not love to lie in the sun as salmon seem to do. Rather 

 do they seek the bottom of the deepest pools, or burrow under the 

 overhanging banks, or hide below fringing trees. At nightfall only 

 do they venture upon the shallows, and then one can hear them in the 

 dark plunging in the quieter waters and splashing in the streams. In 



1. Mr, Calderwood has kindlj- informed me that he has liimself pot two records of seatrout 

 being captured out at sea, in the one case, 40 miles off Lowestoft, and in the other 4.'3 miles off 

 Montrose. I have already (p. 128) noted a vague reference to a it'/iilliiu/ being taken 40 miles inland, 

 and may add that when I was at Hampton Bishop in August, 11)1.5. a seatrout weighing 4i,lb. was 

 caught in the Wye by Mr, Hatton, Junr., of Hereford, 60 miles from the ocean — a somewhat 

 unusual capture as I was told. 



