SOME BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 223 



I tried to remember instances of some remark- 

 able specimens of trout caught during recent years 

 in Britain, and I succeeded in recalling the capture 

 of a magnificent i6-pounder in the Test at Romsey, 

 rivalling the 21 -pounder of Loch Rannock, in 

 Perthshire ! 



Old Father Thames at Sheppei ton weir yielded 

 one (dead unfortunately) of 9 Ibs. weight, 27 in. 

 long and 14 in. girth ; from private waters in 

 the Midlands came a fine rainbow-trout of 9 Ibs. 

 I oz. that transcendent " beauty " of the sal- 

 monidai acclimatised in England, and I think 

 stocked in the Buckingham Palace lake ; while 

 from the Colne an astonished roach-fisher drew 

 with his fragile tackle a handsome trout (8 Ibs. i oz.), 

 after a prolonged fight. 



The appetite of a trout can be very voracious 

 and indiscriminate. The following was the ex- 

 perience of a gentleman when fishing in a tributary 

 of the VVey, near Guildford, in August, 1904. He 

 landed a fish of 2\ Ibs. weight, and saw a tail pro- 

 truding from its mouth ; upon opening the body 

 he found a partly digested water-rat, ten inches 

 long. 



Trout are not always carnivorous. They some- 

 times become graminiverous and even domesticated. 

 On the River Test at Wherwell, near Andover, they 



