36 TISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



Leven and caught many trout. It was a question of fact, and 

 I resolved to decide it in such a way as to leave no doubt in my 

 own mind at least. In a week or two afterwards I was on the 

 banks of Loch Leven. 



The angler, leaving Edinburgh, will find no difficulty in 



' reaching Kinross ; the lake is at hand ; as it is private property, 



he must engage a boat from the tenant, and in it rowing to a 



small rocky island towards its northern shore, he lands at the 



foot of that ruined castle, once the prison of Marie Stuart. 



Should the wind be strong and favourable, the angler may 

 readily enough take some good trout, as I did. The fly used 

 was a large one, like those we used on Prestmannan Lake. It 

 was in autumn. The trout of Loch Leven taken with nets in 

 great numbers, to be sent all over the kingdom, and at high 

 prices, is a beautiful, silvery, dark-spotted trout, of a species 

 quite distinct from all river trout, and imagined by some to be 

 peculiar to the lake. This, however, is not likely, since trout 

 quite resembling those of Leven are found in many northern 

 lakes. The flesh is of a fine pink colour ; the eating admirable. 

 During summer and autumn, when examined (and I have 

 opened hundreds to ascertain the fact), the trout has its stomach 

 filled with flies and insects, the ordinary food of the common 

 river trout ; but, in addition, it is often found to have been 

 living on a small buccinum, or fresh- water whelk, with which the 

 shallow waters of the lake abound. 



But the great peculiarity of the trout of Loch Leven is the 

 fact that, in December, January, and February, many Loch 

 Leven trout come into market, and are then found to be in the 

 highest condition ; at a time when river trout are everywhere 

 out of season and unfit for food. Curious to discover the cause 

 of this, I examined a very great number of these winter and 

 early spring trout. In all, I found that the food they had been 

 living on was microscopic ; that is, entomostracan, so small that 

 the microscope was required to make out distinctly the character 

 of the food. These trout were in fact subsisting, thriving, and 

 fattening on the food used by the char and the verigis, and by 

 the herring. I am thus disposed to think that two species of 

 trout inhabit Loch Leven, independent of the common river 



