THE COMMON TROUT. 199 



Edinburgh on the culinary character of the diffe- 

 rent kinds or varieties of trouts in Scotland, we 

 shall here say nothing more on this department of 

 our subject.* 



The characteristic habits of trouts, their usual 

 haunts, their favourite feeding grounds, their chosen 

 resting-places, cannot be described by human pen, 

 so infinite is the variety of circumstances by which 

 they are surrounded. Could any man detail these 

 haunts and habits amply and accurately, his work 

 would be the best and greatest of cosmographies, 

 Malte Brun and Balbi would " babble of green fields" 

 no more for ever, and the " Angler's Guide " would 

 depict the universal world, for what portion of the 

 habitable globe worth speaking of, does not abound 

 in fertile flowing rivers, or, in the form of broad 

 expanded lakes, spreads not its glittering bosom 

 to the sun 2 Why does the " teeming West," year 

 after year, through trackless woods or over vast 



* We cordially agree with, and have great pleasure in recording 

 the more so as we had previously published the same facts ourselves, 

 the following observations of M. Agassiz on the colouring and food of 

 fishes. " It is during the autumn, and at the time of the greatest 

 cold, that is to say, in October, November, December, and January, 

 that their tints are most brilliant, and the colours become more vivid 

 by the accumulation of a great quantity of coloured pigments. We 

 might almost say, that these fishes bedeck themselves in a nuptial 

 garment as do birds. The colour of their flesh varies according to 

 the nature of their aliment. This family of fishes feeds especially 

 upon the larvae of aquatic insects, and on small Crustacea. It is in 

 the waters which contain the most of these last that the most beauti- 

 ful salmon-trout are found. Direct experiments, which were made in 

 lakes, have proved to the author's satisfaction, that the intensity of 

 the colour of the flesh arises from the greater or smaller quantity of 

 Gammarince which they have devoured." Fourth Report of the British 

 Association, p. 620. 



