180 THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



opinion that loch-trout are of the same species as 

 those which are found in rivers, and that their dis- 

 tinctive characteristics are entirely the result of feed- 

 ing. In some lochs, in addition to the common trout, 

 the Salmo Jerox is found a large coarse species, 

 chiefly predatory in its habits, but affording excellent 

 play when hooked. This fish is occasionally caught 

 of great size, and numbers have been caught weighing 

 from ten to twenty pounds. One was caught in 1866 

 by William Muir, Esq., of Innistrynich, which com- 

 pletely surpasses any that we have ever heard of. 

 This patriarch of the species weighed 39J pounds, 

 and measured 3 feet 9 inches in length and feet 

 2^ inches in girth. 



What is remarkably strange, it was taken by Mr. 

 Muir with fly, when engaged in angling for salmon 

 in the river Awe, where it leaves the loch of the same 

 name, and landed after a run of upwards of two hours, 

 during which Mr. Muir had to cross the river in 

 a boat which fortunately was at hand. What age 

 this fish was it is impossible to conjecture. It was, 

 as its dimensions prove, a well-conditioned fish, and 

 had the curvature of the upper jaw which is usually 

 considered to betoken age very strongly developed. 

 Conjecture and imagination would be alike at fault 

 in reckoning what number of lines, of all descriptions, 

 this monster must have seen in his time. The amount 

 of learning in such matters which he must have 

 accumulated during a residence in the loch of prob- 

 ably not less than fifty years he put to a miserable 

 use in the end selling himself for a very small mess 



