LOCHS. 11 



quite clean and silvery, but large-headed, and worn 

 down to half their proper thickness ; nay, at that time 

 we have beheld twenty or thirty of those huge fish 

 leaping about in different parts of the loch, unable, we 

 allege, to make good their exit. Such, also, is the 

 case in Loch Tay, and we suspect in every loch ap- 

 proachable from the sea, as Loch Awe and others, 

 although in these two the body of effluent water is much 

 larger than that which leaves St Mary's. 



Connected with lochs, we may here mention what 

 varieties of trout are generally to be found in them, 

 compared with rivers. We have detected more than 

 a dozen sorts after one day's angling, all perfectly dis- 

 tinct, and individually marked. In St Mary's Loch 

 this fact is particularly observable, but we shah 1 devote 

 more appropriately to this matter a succeeding chapter, 

 although induced at present to show some reason why 

 and how this variety is produced. 



Streams, by their continual motion, cause in many 

 parts a sameness at the bottom or channel, upon which 

 account the different feeding grounds are alike as to 

 what they yield : hence, the trout are naturally similar 

 and of one appearance ; still, as often is the case, es- 

 pecially in slow waters, if there be a variety of feeding 

 grounds, you find also a proportionate variety of trout. 

 It seldom happens, however, that above three or four 

 sorts are to be discovered in the same river, owing, as 

 we have just mentioned, to the general sameness of 

 the channel. Lochs, on the other hand, which are 

 stationary and unimpaired below, contain, according to 

 their extent and the soil which they cover, so many 

 beds or feeding grounds of a separate nature, produc- 

 ing each its variety of fish. The streams and burns 

 also which they receive are often widely different, some 

 rocky, some passing through rich and fertile valleys, 



