64 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



several fine sea-trout, the largest about three pounds in weight, 

 and upwards of a dozen loch-trout, the best four of which turned 

 the scale at seven pounds. 



The range fished by me is not by any means the most inviting 

 in connexion with Loch Ness ; on the contrary, a great deal of 

 it has the appearance of being destitute of the advantages, in the 

 shape of bays, capes, and feeders, possessed to a large extent by 

 many other portions of its marginal line. Yellow trout frequently 

 attain a great size in this, the most notable, as regards depth 

 and length, if not area, of our Scottish lakes. When at Fort 

 Augustus, I saw a specimen which had been taken by means of 

 trolling-tackle from the boat, weighing fourteen pounds. Whether 

 any claim has been set up in favour of such huge prowlers as 

 belonging to the ferox species T do not know ; indeed, the deeper 

 I am led to inquire into the subject, the nearer I approach to a 

 conviction that ichthyologists are on the wrong tack when they 

 ascribe to the monster trout, which inhabit several of our most 

 spacious lakes, a specific character. The stress laid upon den- 

 tition, the shape and relative proportions of the head, etc., induce 

 me to question in some measure the propriety of the basis on 

 which many of our most eminent naturalists found what they 

 term a species in the family Salmonidce. It may be bordering 

 upon presumption in me to differ in opinion from such authorities 

 as Yarrell, Couch, Selby, Wilson, Jardine, Knox, etc., but until 

 the very singular transformations which the entire head, not to 

 say body, of the kipper, or male salmon, undergoes in the course 

 of the twelvemonth, are satisfactorily explained, I shall be in- 

 clined to hold the ferox in the light of an overgrown fario our 

 Tweed ferox, the swallow-smolt, as it is termed, finding its place 

 also as such in the angler's catalogue. 



Inverness has long enjoyed the repute of being the chief 

 gathering place for sportsmen in the north of Scotland. Its 

 name is associated with venison, grouse, ptarmigan, Alpine 



