1 62 SALMON AND TROUT. 



found traces of shell-fish in greater or less abundance. Lough 

 Melvin is the ' head centre ' for Gillaroo fishing, and anyone 

 who wants to have good sport as well as ordinary lake trout 

 fishing, with an occasional ferox or salmon, cannot do better 

 than pay a visit to Mrs. Scott's moderately charging and 

 charmingly situated hotel at Garrison, Beleek (co. Fermanagh). 

 As to colouring, I consider the Gillaroo trout distinctly 

 the most beautiful fish in the British Islands. It has been 

 said to be recognised in Lough Neagh, the largest of the Irish 

 lakes, as well as Loughs Boffin, Corrib, Mask, and some others , 

 and, according to Stoddart, also in Lochs Muloch, Corrig, and 

 Assynt in Scotland. 



In a specimen examined by Mr. Yarrell, the number 

 of rays of the back fin was less by two than in the more ordi- 

 nary specimens of the common trout, but the numbers of all 

 the other fin rays, as well as of the vertebrae, were identical. 



Variations and deformities amongst trout have been noticed 

 from time to time which their discoverers have doubtless 

 been pleased to chronicle as separate species ; for instance, 

 there is the Botling, mentioned by Dr. Davy as inhabiting 

 Wastwater, Cumberland, which attains a weight of ten or twelve 

 pounds, and is found in the autumn ascending the lake streams 

 for the purpose of spawning. In form it is short and deep, 

 with the lower jaw much hooked, or curved upwards, and, when 

 full grown, its girth considerably exceeds its length. In the 

 arrangement of its teeth and spots it resembles closely the 

 ordinary trout. 



Another singular variety is the * hog-backed trout' of Plin- 

 limmon, a fish not altogether unlike the perch in form, and there 

 is also the deformed trout of Lochdow, Inverness-shire, in which 

 the lower jaw protrudes a long way beyond the upper. This fish 

 was supposed to be confined to Lochdow, but I caught similar 

 trout with the fly in 1862 in a mountain tarn of the same county, 

 called Roy, or Roi, from which the picturesque little salmon 

 river so named takes its source. The elevation of the loch 

 above the sea level is considerable, and its appearance striking, 



