214 



SALMON TROUT. 



Salmo Trutta, Ldjn.sus. Bloch ; PI. 21. CtrviER. 



" " Yarrell; Br. Fishes, vol. ii, p. 77. 



" " Jenyns; Manual, p. 423. 



Among writers of considerable eminence there has been much 

 difference of opinion as regards this fish, compared with the 

 Peal, Sea Trout, and Salmon; with one or other of which, and 

 as we shall find, some others, it has been confounded; as they 

 have also been with one another. But it has been our endeavour 

 to separate them in a manner that we suppose the least liable 

 to mistake; although in doing this we shall represent more 

 species than are usually acknowledged by naturalists; and yet 

 in some particular or other of the distinctions we lay down, we 

 find ourselves supported by authorities it will not be easy to 

 gainsay. But it is in regard to the habits of these separate 

 species that we meet with the greatest difficulty; since in the 

 observations which have been made on that subject, we do not 

 feel assured of the species which has been studied, and the 

 information collected from distant districts becomes thereby 

 subject to a large degree of uncertainty. 



In our own country the Salmon Trout is more a fish of the 

 north than the generality of this genus; for although it occurs 

 in the south and west of the kingdom, and our figure was taken 

 from an example that was obtained in the west of Cornwall, 

 yet there it is not to be regarded as common; whereas in 

 Scotland it is equally abundant with the Salmon, as it seems 

 to be also in Ireland; where Mr. Thompson found it in the 

 markets in the spring, but of the usual small size of that 

 season. He does not give the date of one which weighed upwards 

 of seventeen pounds. It is sent to London in company with 

 the Sea Trout, under the common name of Trout; and when 

 in season it is little inferior to the Salmon. 



