308 THE ANGLER-NATURALIST. 



were, some one they preferred, shoals of this fish may be 

 seen coasting the bays and headlands, leaping and sporting 

 in great numbers, from 1 Ib. to 3 or 4 Ibs. in weight ; and in 

 some of the smaller bays the shoal could be traced several 

 times circling it, and apparently feeding. In these bays 

 they are occasionally taken with a common hang-net 

 stretched across; and when angled for in the estuaries 

 with the ordinary flies which are used in the rivers of the 

 South for Grilse, rose and took so eagerly, that thirty-four 

 were the produce of one rod, engaged for about an hour 

 and a half. They enter every river and rivulet in im- 

 mense numbers *. The food of those taken in the estuaries 

 appeared very indiscriminate : occasionally the remains of 

 some small fish which were too much digested to be 

 distinguished; sometimes flies, beetles, or other insects 

 which the wind or tide had carried out; but the most 

 general food seemed to be the Talitrus locusta, or common 

 Sand-hopper, with which some of their stomachs were 

 completely crammed." 



The Sea-Trout is the only one of the three White or 

 Migratory species which is at all likely under any circum- 

 stances to be confounded with the Yellow Division of Trout, 

 as the difference in the shape of the gill-covers of the 

 common Trout and Sea-Trout is not so marked as to be 

 by itself a sufficient guide for the sportsman. The difference 

 in colour between the two fish the one being silver and 

 the other golden is usually too obvious to admit of doubt : 

 * The females are said to enter rivers before the males. 



