TROUT. 1 1 



in form and colour ; not unlike the salmon in shape, 

 and weighing from three to twenty-five pounds. 



The trout delights in a swift stream, seeking the 

 shallows in summer, and the deeps and still waters in 

 winter. Its favourite haunts, says Mr. Bainbridge, 

 are the junction of two streams the tails of currents, 

 below bridges, near old ruins, and pieces of rock, 

 where the roots of trees are exposed by the bank having 

 fallen in and under hollow banks. Large trout, as 

 Sir Humphry Davy remarks, always hide themselves 

 under the same bank, stone, or weed, and come out 

 from their permanent habitations to feed. A favourite 

 place for a large trout, in rivers, is an eddy, behind a 

 rock or stone, where flies and small fishes are carried 

 by the force of the current. And such haunts are rarely 

 unoccupied, for if a fish is taken out of them, its place 

 is soon supplied by another, who quits for it a less con- 

 venient situation. The young trout fry may be seen 

 throughout the day, sporting on the shallow gravelly 

 scours of the stream, where the want of sufficient 

 depth of water, or the greater caution of larger and 

 older fish, prevents their appearance. Trout begin to 

 feed in March, and are in season till October or Novem- 

 ber; but they are finest from the end of May till to- 

 wards the end of September. 



The following description of a trout is taken from a 

 fish twelve inches in length: The length of the 

 head, compared to that of the head and body, not 

 including the caudal rays of the tail, was as one to 

 four; the depth of the body rather more than the 

 length of the head. The tail was but slightly forked, 

 and growing slowly up to square, in old fish, or 

 even very slightly convex. The form of the head 

 blunt; the eye large ; the irides silvery, with a touch 



