50 Animal Life 
all the fish in British waters there is none that flee so hard as the salmon-trout. In 
most rivers they do not begin to appear till May or June, the larger fish leading the 
van in the annual migration. In June and July more salmon-trout will be taken weighing 
over 2 lb. than under that weight. With the advent of August, shoals of smaller fish 
make their appearance and crowd into the estuaries, waiting for water to carry them up 
to the lochs and spawning grounds. ‘Those which weigh not more than 1 lb. have been 
classed by some naturalists (chiefly local ones) as a separate species; but there is not the 
slightest reason for domg so. These smaller fish, known as herlings in South-west Scotland, 
as finnocks in the Highlands, as whitling in the Tweed, may Bee regarded as salmon-trout 
in the “grilse” stage, that is, fish returning from the sea to spawn for the first time. 
Angling for sea-trout in a breezy loch or swollen stream is not a very delicate art. 
The fish are not fastidious in the matter of flies; anything moving, be it not too big, will 
attract them; if with a bit of glitter in it, so much the surer. It is not hunger cane 
makes them take the lure so much as curiosity or mischief; for they have just left the 
sea, and all their muscles are charged with nutriment derived from the proyender enjoyed 
in that abundant store-house. I have never been able to detect the alleged superiority of 
Photograph by Mr. P. D. Malloch, Perth. 
BULL-TROUT (Salmo Cambricus). 
Weight 401b., caught in the Tay, June, 1900. 
one colour over another in attracting them, and, although I certainly have seen small 
sea-trout feedingon the natural fly, 1 have also ‘seen a eee sea-trout drown, with a flap 
of his tail, a floating white butterfly without the slightest Fintan ton of devouring it. ~* 
It is a arondlesll and beautiful sight that may be witnessed in times of drouenees 
the mouth of a river frequented by : airmnorn- trout. In hundreds, perhaps thousands, they 
crowd in with the tide, leaping perpetually, so that you may see three or four in the 
air at once. It is vain to angle for them at such times; at least, I have never scored a 
success. But let the fisherman have the patience to wait till it is quite dark, which, in 
August, may be about half-past nine or ten (in the North), and he may fill his creel many 
times over. The fish at that time work up over the shallows into the lower pools of the 
river ; it is wonderful what thin water they manage to get through. Like the Mississippi 
steamers, they seem able to go wherever it is a little damp. You may hear them rattling 
over the gravel lke so many rabbits. 
Sian trout show marked and apparently capricious preference for certain rivers 
and parts of rivers. They are, perhaps, more numerous on the west coasts of Scotland 
and Ireland than elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and swarm up certain streams when 
flooded, which, in the summer droughts, become the merest rivulets. In some other 
streams of far greater volume and, to all appearance, more desirable in every way, they 
