

PEAL. 203 



round, not cruciform, reddish. A remarkable difference was 

 in the adipose fin, which in the female Peal is less, and not 

 so far back. In this male it reached to near the base of the 

 tail. It is worthy of notice that Sir Humphrey Davy, in his 

 "Salmonia," records something not unlike this, but in the 

 opposite direction. In the month of October he obtained a 

 considerable number of Sea Trouts, and all of them were 

 males; but this may have been only a separation of the sexes 

 in the course of migration, as was the case with a goodly 

 number of Charr, kindly sent to me from Ireland by the 

 Earl of Enniskillen, to whom I have been indebted for much 

 assistance in the course of this work, and all of them were 

 found to be males, as were an equal number caught at the 

 same time and sent to the British Museum. 



I have not been able to obtain satisfactory information con- 

 cerning the early stages of development of the Peal, nor of the 

 descent of the young to the sea; but there is a fish, well known 

 in some streams in the west, by the name of the White Trout, 

 and of which I have no doubt of its being an • early growth 

 of the Peal; in which opinion I am confirmed by the authority 

 of Sir William Jardine, whose acquaintance with the fishes of 

 the Salmon tribe is generally acknowledged. Put there can be 

 no doubt that when this smaller fish shews itself it is not earlier 

 than about the end of its first year; and what forms a singular 

 portion of its history, it is regularly found in some, perhaps 

 small, numbers, in rivers where the full-grown Peal, its supposed 

 parent, is not known to enter or breed. If even we may 

 suppose that some examples of the adult fish have entered their 

 own river and shed their spawn considerably earlier than the 

 time when we have traced them to do so, for irregularity in 

 this respect is not uncommon in all sorts of fishes, it can 

 scarcely be believed even that the progress of the young can 

 have so greatly outstripped that of the young Salmon, as to 

 have reached the length of from four to six inches in the 

 month of January, as I have known these to have done; although 

 more frequently they begin to be caught in March, and from 

 thence onward to May, in company with the Trout. After the 

 last-named month they are found to have left the fresh water, 

 and as we may judge, to seek a change of food in the depths 

 of the sea, from which just at this time the full-grown fish are 



