FISHES. 253 



is a variety of the former called in the neighbourhood of Lough 

 Neagh the Gillaroo Trout, and said by common rumour to 

 have a gizzard like that of a fowl. This notion must have 

 originated in common observers having mistaken for a gizzard 

 the skin of the stomach, which becomes hardened, possibly 

 from the large numbers of a univalve shell (Pahidina impura) 

 used as food. The Great Lake Trout sometimes exceeds a 

 yard in length and thirty pounds in weight. The large 

 individuals are known at Lough Neagh by the name of 

 Buddaghs, and the smaller as Dolachans. 



Among the delightful fictions of the Arabian Nights' 

 Entertainments is one of a lake, in whose waters were fishes 

 of four different colours. Local causes seem to act upon the 

 colour of the common Trout, so as to produce effects scarcely 

 less surprising. This fish is distinguished for its bright and 

 speckled skin; but we have seen, at Lough Katrine, Trout so 

 black, that they seemed as if they had gone into mourning. 

 The author of "Wild Sports in the West" mentions a similar 

 circumstance with regard to the trout of a small lake in the 

 county of Monaghan, the water being bounded on one shore 

 by a bog, and on the opposite by a dry and gravelly surface. 

 On the bog side the Trout are dark and ill-shaped; on the 

 other they are beautiful and sprightly, like those inhabiting 

 rapid and sandy streams. " Narrow as the lake is, the fish 

 appear to confine themselves to their respective limits the 

 red Trout being never found upon the bog moiety of the lake, 

 nor the black where the under surface is hard gravel." 



But the brief space which we can devote to the Salmonidce 

 renders it needful that we should proceed at once to the most 

 important of the family, the Salmon (Salmo salar). 



During the floods of winter and early spring, this fish 

 descends the river to the sea, lean and ill-conditioned, and 

 returns in a few months, plump, well-conditioned, and greatly 

 increased in size, from the abundance of food derived from 

 small Crustacea, fishes, and other marine animals and their 

 ova. It is on their return from the sea for the purpose of 

 spawning that the Salmon are taken. This occurs during 

 the summer and autumn months, the precise time being 

 different in different rivers. 



Impelled onwards by the instinct which prompts this 

 migration, the Salmon endeavours to surmount all obstacles 

 that lie in its course, and flings itself over ledges of rock ten 



C2 



