CROSS BREEDS. 1] 



attain to in their own native stream. They will acquire 

 more seemly and captivating proportions, and derive 

 from liberal and luxurious feeding a corresponding 

 richness of flavour and firmness of flake. That these 

 latter results are frequently accompanied by a heighten- 

 ing of the internal colour a change from its pristine 

 whiteness to pink or red, I do not deny. Where there 

 is shell marl, or abundance of insect food, this trans- 

 mutation is likely to occur ; but it is by no means, even 

 under these circumstances, an infallible result of the 

 transference. I am acquainted with a natural sheet of 

 water, forty or fifty acres in extent, and stocked, as I 

 have described, from a small streamlet, or hill burn, 

 where, while the trout acquired large dimensions, and 

 improved both in shape and flavour, they still retained 

 the original white colour. Nor is redness in the flesh 

 always an indication of superiority, as respects the 

 edible qualities of the fish. I have partaken at table of 

 trout distinguished for their high colour, and yet, in 

 point of taste, they were soft, rank, and mud-flavoured ; 

 while, on the other hand, I have met with white-fleshed 

 trout, firm, curdy, and good. 



In regard to this matter of redness, peculiar to the 

 flesh of salmon, trout, and charr, I am led more naturally 

 to refer to it in a future chapter : it is therefore, at 

 present, quite unnecessary to expatiate on the subject. 

 Nor, in renewing my remarks relative to the transfer- 

 ence of trout from one range of water to another, need 

 I multiply instances. What has already fallen from 

 me, will suffice to bring out and illustrate some points 

 in the natural history of the fish hitherto unrecorded. 

 Their astonishing variety, every lake and river possess- 

 ing its own distinct breed the effect of change of 

 circumstances on their appearance the chameleon-like 



