32 Wild Life in Wales 



long ago been established. Perhaps there may have been, 

 and in that case the small may be gradually supplanting the 

 large, for obviously they must always have been most 

 numerous, and large specimens are said to be very rarely 

 netted nowadays. 



During my stay at Llanuwchllyn every opportunity was 

 taken of learning as much about the Gwyniad as possible, 

 on the spot. I talked with many people who had assisted 

 in netting operations on the lake, or had seen the fish 

 landed, and missed no chance of examining fresh specimens. 

 It is some years, however, since anything like a large catch 

 of Gwyniads has been made. One person informed me that 

 about ten years ago he had seen several hundreds landed 

 at one draught of the net : in previous years he had seen 

 nearly as many taken on several occasions, but he believed 

 that no such haul had been made more recently. These 

 large catches generally occurred in early autumn, and at the 

 Bala end of the lake, all the fish being practically of one 

 size, and about 9 or 10 inches in length, "just like herrings," 

 as he expressed it. He believed he had been present at the 

 catching of most of the Gwyniads for some twenty years 

 past, and never remembered to have seen one appreciably 

 larger, with the exception of the two mentioned below. 

 Sometimes a considerable haul used to be landed opposite 

 Llangowr. 



The two large specimens referred to were netted at the 

 beginning of September 1906, and were the largest that 

 any of the local people seemed to remember, or to have 

 heard of. The best of these was presented by Sir Watkin 

 Williams Wynn to the British Museum, and was stated to 

 have measured 1 5^ inches in length, and to have weighed 

 nearly 2 Ibs. The other is preserved at the Goat Hotel, at 

 Llanuwchllyn station, and was about an inch shorter, and 

 about i|- Ibs. in weight. For the sake of comparison, it 

 may be mentioned that Day, in his British Fishes, says, " This 

 fish attains to 3 or 4 Ibs. weight (Pennant), and has been 

 recorded up to 16 inches in length." But a fish of 16 

 inches would clearly not weigh much over 2 Ibs. 



The opinion of residents on the lake is that Gwyniads 



