THE TROUT. 69 



of it. We happened to see several of these ; one 

 measured nearly two feet and a half, but was not much 

 thicker than a man's arm, and could not weigh above 

 three pounds ; the rest were similarly proportioned. 

 They were white, like a spring kelt, large headed, and 

 scaly. During the following winter, when ascending 

 the burn to spawn, the whole parent breed seem to 

 have been exterminated by some fellows with leisters, 

 for in the years succeeding, down to the present day, 

 not a single fish of this description has been captured. 

 In 1826, the pond contained a considerable number of 

 common-sized, well-fed trout ; in 1828, these had all 

 disappeared, and a very small and numerous breed suc- 

 ceeded. Although then poor hands at angling, we 

 generally managed to take from four to six dozen, and 

 that summer there were often twenty individuals fish- 

 ing on the pond at the same time. The breed of that 

 year seems to have been the proper stock-breed, which 

 is now confirmed and well grown. But the most sin- 

 gular circumstance connected with this pond is, that 

 along with the breed of common fresh- water trout, 

 there remains another precisely uniform with the sea 

 trout, or the whitling, which were wont, some years 

 ago, to ascend Glencorse burn, above where the pond 

 now stands, and spawn there. The Esk, which re- 

 ceives this small stream, has since been so dammed be- 

 low, as to hinder these fish from running up to any 

 distance from the sea. 



We have thus a series of facts clearly demonstrated : 

 1, That the sea is not necessary to the existence of the 

 whitling. 2, That the want of salt water, although it 

 deteriorates the breed, does not remove its faculty of 

 reproduction ; and, 3, That the par is not the male of 

 the whitling, neither a cross between it and the com- 

 mon trout, since it is not found in the place alluded to. 



