150 SALMON AND TROUT. 



inferior to both the salmon and sea trout, if we can only induce 

 him to try conclusions with us the bull trout is a splendid 

 fellow a ' foeman worthy of our steel.' There is a breadth of 

 build and general strengthiness about him which is not belied 

 by the gallantry and determination with which he shows fight 

 when brought to bay. I think he dies harder than even the 

 salmon the Bayard of the water, sans feur et sans reproche. 

 Indeed, he is better built for fighting in some respects, being 

 shorter, thicker, and generally more muscular more bull-like, 

 in fact, in appearance, as his name denotes 



I have pointed out the comparative rarity of the bull trout 

 as contrasted with the salmon proper, but it is very likely that 

 it exists in many more rivers than those chronicled by ichthyo- 

 logists, and indeed that it is in many cases mistaken by local 

 anglers for the salmon. The river in which it is best known 

 and where its habits have been probably most studied is the 

 Tweed, where it is as abundant as either the salmon or sea 

 trout. Lord Home gives the following observations on the 

 habits of the Tweed bull trout : 



' The bull trout has increased in numbers in the Tweed 

 prodigiously within the last forty years, and to that increase I 

 attribute the decrease of salmon trout or whitling for the 

 whitling in the Tweed was the salmon trout, not the young bull 

 trout, which now go by the name of trouts simply. The bull 

 trout take the river at two seasons. The first shoal come up 

 about the end of April and May. They are then small, weigh- 

 ing from two to four or five pounds. The second, and by far the 

 more numerous shoal, come late in November. They then come 

 up in thousands, and are not only in fine condition, but of a 

 much larger size, weighing from six to twenty pounds. The 

 bull trout is an inferior fish, and is exactly what is called, at 

 Dalkeith and Edinburgh, Musselburg trout. 



'The great shoal of bull trout not taking the river till after 

 the commencement of close time, are in a great measure lost 

 both to the proprietor and the public,' 



Yarrell, however, speaking of the bull trout generally, 



