NATURAL CHARACTERS OF TROUT. 45 



The fins, especially the pectorals, are of a deep 

 orange-yellow colour, the others rather inclining to 

 brown, while the dorsal is spotted with black, the same 

 as the sides, and the two anterior rays of the anal fin 

 are of a milky white colour. The caudal fin or tail is 

 broad, and nearly straight on the posterior edge, or only 

 very slightly crescent-shaped in the adult fish, but 

 deeply forked in the young fry. 



The parr of the trout, as well as that of every 

 species of salmonida3, is marked with transverse dusky 

 bars along the sides, very similar to the salmon-parr 

 during the first two years of their existence,* and can 

 only be certainly distinguished from the latter at this 

 stage by the aforementioned scarlet border on the 

 superior posterior margin of the adipose fin ; while in 

 the salmon-parr this border is entirely absent, and the 

 whole fin is of a uniform light brown colour. The gill- 

 covers of the trout are also less acute at their posterior 



* It is generally supposed that the parr marks disappear from the 

 trout-fry in the second autumn after they are hatched ; but in some 

 rivers I am convinced they retain them for a considerably longer 

 period, as I have taken hundreds, of eight and nine inches in length 

 even, with the bar-marks as distinct as ever, while the slightly cres- 

 cented caudal fin indicated that their age was much more than two 

 years. In Wark Burn, Northumberland, I have frequently taken 

 some peculiarly marked trout, having large, oval, bluish bars, inter- 

 polated with two rows of circular discs of the same colour ; one above 

 the lateral line, and the other below it. These discs vary in size 

 from that of a sixpence to a threepenny-piece, gradually diminishing 

 towards the tail ; and are interposed near the upper and lower extre- 

 mities of the oval bars, giving the trout a very beautiful appearance. 

 I have never seen any trout so marked in any other river. 



