38 ANGLING. 



"bottoms, for this annual operation. Like the salmon, he leaps over 

 formidable obstacles in his ^progress, although he cannot cope, in 

 point of muscular agility, with the prince of the waters ; still, in 

 proportion to his size, the trout possesses quite as much physical 

 vigour and daring as the lordly salmon. The leaps the trout will 

 take when ascending ^the rivers in autumn are really quite asto- 

 nishing. If we examine even the smallest rivulet, or burn, which 

 runs into any good trout stream, we shall find it full of small trout- 

 fry, the produce of the spawn which the parent fish had, under the 

 pressure of apparently insuperable difficulties, contrived to deposit. 

 A trout of a pound weight will often clear a leap of four feet nigh. 



The period of the year in which trout are in the finest condition 

 varies in different countries, and even in different rivers of the 

 same country. The seasons also exercise a considerable influence. 

 If the winter has been open and mild, the trout will be in fine order 

 much earlier than if there had been long sharp frosts and heavy 

 falls of snow. We have in some rivers, such as the Tweed and 

 Coquet, caught trout in tolerable condition in the _ months of 

 [February and March. In 1851, we caught burn-trout in the Esk, 

 Haddingtonshire, as red as crimson, in the last day of < January. 

 In the months of June and July, trout are generally, in all the 

 rivers of Europe, supposed to arrive at their highest degree of per- 

 fection in strength, richness, and flavour. 



This fish varies in size in different rivers and different countries, 

 from the small Welsh trout of a few ounces to the giants of some 

 foreign rivers, which occasionally reach a weight of twenty or thirty 

 pounds ; but the general run of fish in trout-streams averages from 

 half a pound to a pound and a half. In waters where they are very 

 numerous, the number caught below half a pound will, in ordinary 

 cases, far exceed those Caught above that weight. It is almost a 

 universal rule or condition of existence, that where trout are large 

 they are scarce. 



The age which trout generally attain has been a long disputed, 

 and is as yet an undecided, question among naturalists and anglers. 

 Experiments have been made in ponds to settle this point; but 

 such tests are not quite satisfactory, inasmuch as they are, in some 

 degree, artificial eon ivances, and place the fish out of their usual 

 haunts, habits, and modes of life. There can be little doubt, we 

 apprehend, that the longevity _ of the trout varies with the country, 

 and the nature of the stream it inhabits. 



We shall here recite two instances relative to the age of this fish, 

 which have been noticed in other works on fishing. The first is 

 the statement that a trout died in August, 1809, which had been 

 in Dumbarton Castle for eight-and-twenty years ^ the other account 

 is taken from the Westmoreland Advertiser ot some years ago. 

 "Fifty years since, the proprietor of Bond Hall, near Sroughton, 

 in Eurness, when a boy, placed a male Eellbeck trout in a Aveil in 

 the orchard belonging to the family, where it remained till last 

 week, when it departed this life, not through any sickness or in- 



