210 ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT FISHERIES 



return and run up the Brathay. Nor is this difficult 

 to explain. The temperature of the Brathay is 

 several degrees lower than that of the Rothay, and 

 its colder and deeper rocky pools are more con- 

 genial to the char. 



This is probably to be accounted for by the fact 

 that the Rothay flows through Grasmere and Rydal 

 Water before entering the lake a. circumstance 

 which it is well known invariably raises the tem- 

 perature of the water. 



The number of char which now spawn in the 

 Brathay is small compared with that of twenty or 

 more years ago, and is annually decreasing. Nor 

 are the fry of char now ever seen in the stream. 



The spot where the char spawn is the same year 

 by year just opposite the wooded knoll some two 

 hundred yards above the Church Bridge. Formerly 

 the spawning fish were more widely distributed, 

 and among the places where they spawned were the 

 Badger Wheel and the King Wheel. 



As the close-time for char in Windermere, 

 Coniston, &c., is the same as that for trout viz. 

 between the 2nd of October and the 3ist of March 

 it may be taken that, in the opinion of those 

 best able to judge, the char spawn in October and 

 November, and are again in condition by April. 

 And substantially this is so but with a considerable 

 reservation. The fishermen who have spent their 

 lives on the lake, and other close observers, state 

 what indeed has been known for a century that 

 there are, as they express it, " two distinct kinds " 

 of char in the lake, the red char and the silver char ; 

 and that the one spawns in November, the other 

 in February. It is further stated that the red 

 fish spawn on the banks of the lake in November, 



