FISHES OF THE DISTRICT 165 



caught gave me the impression that an injury had caused it. 

 On dissection, however, I found the spine quite healthy, and 

 following the curve of the fish. The late Dick Routledge 

 caught three or four one day. . . . They are, as far as I 

 know, confined to a stretch of about a mile." 



The food of trout is very various, and, according 

 as this is rich and abundant or poor, so is the flesh 

 pink or white. Abundance of Crustacea, either in 

 salt or fresh water, has the effect of making the 

 flesh red ; and trout found in brackish water, or 

 near an estuary, are invariably pink-fleshed. Al- 

 most all the big Windermere trout taken by 

 trolling are pink-fleshed, and this is doubtless 

 owing to the abundance of the mollusc known 

 as the freshwater-snail. In certain places these 

 molluscs cover the floor of the lake in thousands, 

 and a I Ib. trout has been taken having thirteen 

 of them in its maw at one time. Pollution is fatal 

 to this and other lower forms of life, thus showing 

 that it does indirect, as well as direct, harm to 

 fisheries. Apart from winged food, probably min- 

 nows constitute the chief food of trout ; and in the 

 larger lakes, Windermere for instance, the bigger 

 fish feed upon the smaller members of their own 

 kind, upon small perch, and char. In fact, large 

 trout are almost omnivorous. I have recorded 

 elsewhere the fact of a large trout taking a smaller 

 one which was hooked ; and in the lower part of 

 the Kent a I Ib. trout was observed swimming 

 about in a piece of slack water with a fairly large 

 fluke in its mouth, which it found, of course, 

 impossible to swallow. 



Although there are exceptional rivers and tarns, 

 the spawning season for trout throughout the 

 Lake District may be taken as from about the end 



