186 ANGLING. 



whether species, or variety, or differing only in 

 age is also pink and delicately flavoured. 



The colours of both these sorts, during the 

 spawning season, is a changeable grayish-black, 

 slightly tinted in the males with brown ; and at 

 this period they offer a most marked contrast in 

 their lank and darkened forms, to the symmetrical 

 shape and stainless silvery lustre of their earlier 

 condition. Their flesh, too, becomes white and 

 insipid, and the whole fish assumes an unwhole- 

 some aspect. Yet it is in this condition, as Dr. 

 Parnell has observed, that while returning to the 

 sea, in the months of January and February, 

 numbers are taken in the Forth above Stirling, as 

 well as in the Tay, and sent to the Edinburgh 

 market, where, under the name of Lammasmen, 

 they are sold at the rate of about sevenpence per 

 pound. The largest specimen of the salmon-trout 

 which has come to our knowledge is that men- 

 tioned by Mr. Yarrell. It was a female in fine 

 condition, in the possession of Mr. Groves of Bond 

 Street (noted in June 1 831), and weighed seven- 

 teen pounds. 



An obscure cloud still overhangs the history of all 

 these migratory trouts, from the time of their first 

 departure from our rivers in early life, till their 

 first return towards them. We have no doubt; 

 however, that like their great congener the salmon, 

 they remain much longer in the fresh waters than 

 is usually supposed. Mr. Shaw lately laid before 

 the Royal Society a brood of young sea-trout 

 (Salmo trutta, we presume) produced by mechanical 



