170 FISHING GOSSIP. 



affluents. There is no evidence, either geological 

 or historical, that it ever existed in Great Britain or 

 Ireland, and its reception into several works on 

 British fauna is rather indicative of a wish that so 

 remarkable a species should not be missing from the 

 list of British fishes. It is said to be found occasion- 

 ally in the Lake of Neuchatel, but the most western 

 locality for it, where it thrives, and is of value as an 

 article of food, is, as I have stated, the country 

 north of the Lake of Constance. In speaking of rivers 

 as habitats of the wels, or Silurus glanis, I must add 

 that it is a lake rather than a river fish, avoiding even 

 gentle currents, and retreating to those parts which 

 are almost dead water. In such spots it is found 

 throughout the system of the Danube, and as far 

 south as Constantinople. The sluggish rivers of 

 Northern Germany, and the numerous lakes of Meck- 

 lenburg and Northern Prussia abound with the wels ; 

 in Scandinavia it appears to be limited to a few 

 localities, being more numerous in the eastern than 

 the western parts ; it is found in the systems of all 

 the rivers running into the Black and Caspian Seas, 

 and probably it extends further eastwards into Central 

 Asia, but in China and Japan we find it replaced by 

 other, although closely allied species. 



It is a historical fact, worthy of the notice of 

 those who would attempt the acclimatisation of the 

 wels, that it has naturally extended its geographical 



