COMMON TROUT. 



231 



of a rich dark brown, with an aggravation of the other 

 characteristic tints. It is believed that these migratory examples 

 in no long time return to their native river; at which season 

 again their appearance is so changed that they have been judged 

 a distinct species; and we believe that they are the same which 

 Dr. Knox has denominated the Estuary Trout. 



It is not easy to ascertain the age to which a Trout may 

 reach, and Lord Bacon assigns it a limited date, but without 

 giving any evidence on the subject. We know the dangers 

 to which all of Salmon family are exposed; so that few 

 of them can be supposed to live out half their days. But an 

 exception has been made in two or three instances in favour 

 of some examples of the Trout; and we are informed that a 

 farmer near Pontypool had a fish of this kind captive in his 

 well for twenty-seven years; during which time it had not 

 increased in size. And this is exceeded by one mentioned by 

 Daniel, in the Supplement to his "Rural Sports," which is 

 recorded to have lived for twenty-eight years in a well at 

 Dumbarton Castle, and which was the weight of a pound when 

 first conveyed thither; but even this is greatly exceeded by an 

 instance mentioned by Mr. Yarrell, where a Trout is said to 

 have lived at Broughton, in Furness, for fifty-three years. 



Daniel's account of this fish of Dumbarton Castle may be 

 thought interesting by those who have not had an opportunity 

 of seeing the original work. He says that "the Garrison of 

 Dumbarton Castle, in Scotland, was thrown into general 

 lamentation by the sudden loss of its oldest veteran, who had 

 served therein, a general favourite, for the long period of 

 twenty-eight years." It was "a Trout, which having been caught 

 by an officer in the river Severn, was put into the garrison 

 well, that flows to the surface, where in time it became so tame 

 as to receive its food of bread from the hands of the soldiery, 

 in the water. When first taken it weighed little more than a 

 pound, and it never afterwards increased in size." The instance 

 here given was a case of solitary, and therefore might be supposed 

 unnatural confinement; but the same writer mentions an instance 

 where a Trout of large size had been known in a district of 

 the Clyde for almost twenty years, during which "it eluded 

 every artifice that the ingenuity of the sportsman had devised" 

 for taking it. It at last left its usual haunts in consequence 



