NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SALMONID^E. 173 



of entomology, one of them exhibits a promise of future expansion 

 never presented by the other. Not but that the latter, under 

 favourable circumstances, is capable of reaching a considerable 

 weight and size ; but the larger he grows the less he really 

 resembles the Great Lake type. His increase is lateral rather than 

 longitudinal, as if the vertebrae refused to be parties in the process ; 

 and I have seen quadrilateral monsters of this type taken in small 

 bog lakes, which weighed from nine to ten pounds, though no more 

 than a dozen or fifteen inches long. But they were nasty tenchy 

 creatures to look at, bad for sport, and worse for the table. 



Our old friend ferox, notwithstanding his bad name, never 

 makes a beast of himself in this fashion. No matter to what 

 stature he grows, he never, till age overtakes him, loses his noble 

 athletic and artistic proportions. In these characteristic qualities, 

 he vies with salar and trutta themselves. Into rivers or brooks, 

 except for the purpose of making them tributary to the propagation 

 of his young, he never condescends to wander. Even in the lower 

 reaches of rivers discharging into the lakes he inhabits, I have 

 never met him in the summer months. Neither will he answer 

 the call of inquisitive naturalists who expect to find him at home 

 in small loughs, though contiguous to or connected by stream or 

 river with large ones. Elbow- or, more correctly, fin-room he 

 must have, or he will not prosper. There would appear, indeed, 

 a certain ratio always to exist between him and the extent of water 

 he requires. In this he, of course, only conforms to the supposed 

 law of harmony which is said to prevail between all organisms 

 and external circumstances. But why other little fishes in the 

 same waters do not conform in the same way the philosophers do 

 not tell us. It is probably certain, however, that in lakes less than 

 three miles long, and half that in width, a genuine specimen of the 

 ferox will not be found. The physical features, too, of the ample 

 basin he loves to sport in, besides mere extent, have doubtless 

 much to do with his health and happiness. Shingle beaches, 

 marly bottoms, precipitous rocks, fathomless water valleys, and 

 corresponding elevations of sharps or sunken islands, to which in 

 the summer he resorts to have a charge at the sticklebacks, or a 

 tumble at his favourite ephemeridae, constitute some of the do- 

 mestic requirements for his full development. As a variety he has 

 no objection to a certain amount of bog shore ; but it is obvious it 

 does not agree well with his constitution his fine colours suffering 

 there, and his whole physiognomy becoming bilious and jaundiced. 



