212 ANGLING. 



dimensions. The Thames trout, of which we have 

 ourselves no practical experience, seem most fre- 

 quently to reach a great size. They are described 

 as being short compared to their length, of great 

 thickness, and extremely well flavoured. Two 

 were taken some seasons back, the one of eleven, 

 the other of fifteen pounds in weight. 



The size and character of trouts depend much 

 upon the general attributes of the waters they in- 

 habit. Mr. Stoddart has put forth some very reason- 

 able remarks on this department of our subject. He 

 observes that rocky waters, of which the bottom is 

 deprived of soil and gravel, or which has at best 

 but a thin coating of the latter, do not abound in 

 trout, for the sufficing reason that the appropriate 

 food is there deficient. " In such waters, no doubt, 

 there are often to be met with certain temporary 

 adaptations for nourishing fish, as in the case of 

 much wood overshadowing them, and thereby, dur- 

 ing warm and summer months, raining down great 

 store of tree flies ; also, if fern or sweet thyme 

 crowd the banks, small beetles and grasshoppers 

 are bred, but these form altogether a provisional 

 subsistence, withdrawn by the rigid hand of winter. 

 The fact is proved by many examples ; let us pitch, 

 for instance, upon a known stream, after this sort. 

 We take the Cae or Cona of Ossian, which runs 

 through Glencoe into Lochleven, an arm of the sea 

 in Argyllshire. A small loch or lake is its proper 

 source, called thereabouts, in the Gaelic tongue, 

 Treachten. After issuing from this, it proceeds with 

 considerable rapidity over shelving masses of rock, 



