170 MALACOPTEKYGII. 



Town ; but within the last few years they have been pulled down to make way 

 for "the park's extended bounds."* 



In the months of November and December this fish deposits its spawn 

 where the lake presents a hard or rocky bottom. On the 4lh of December, 

 1835, a quantity of the largest pollans I have seen were brought to Belfast 

 market. Several which 1 obtained for examination were 13 inches in length, 

 and all on dissection proved to be females. Most of them were in full roe 

 (the ova from ,'g-th to |th of an inch in diameter), but some had partly shed it ; 

 one of the former was in total weight 94 oz., the roe alone weighmg 2^ oz. In 

 the others the proportion of roe was similar. On the 11th of the same month, 

 several male specimens of full size that I procured, and which contained milt 

 most prominently developed, measured but II3 inches. Thus showing that in 

 maturity the female fish exceeds the male in length, in the proportion of 13 to 

 114. Its average weight when in season is about 6 oz. One specimen, men- 

 tioned to me as the largest taken withhi the last ten years, weighed 2| lbs. The 

 only food that I have, without resorting to the microscope, detected in the sto- 

 mach of tlie pollan was a full-grown specimen of the bivalve shell Pisidium pul- 

 chellimi. A pebble of equal size was also found along with it. In one which I 

 had the pleasure of sending to Mr. Yarrell, he met with a species of Gamtna- 

 i-us.f — Yarr. Brit. Fishes, vol. ii. 



The Buddagh, or Great Lake Trout, is occasionally taken on night lines baited 

 with the pollan ; for which purpose the perch, divested, of its spinous dorsal fin, 

 is also used. The lesser black-backed gull {Larus fiiscus, Linn.), which fre- 

 quents the lake in considerable numbers, is, in consequence of being believed to 

 subsist on this fish, called there commonly by the name of Pollan Gull. 



As yet the pollan is known to me only as inhabiting Lough Neagh. In 

 Harris's " Down " (p. 238), it is stated, " that Lough Erne, in the County of 

 Fermanagh, has the same sort of fish, though not in so great plenty." This is 

 probably correct, as Lough Erne is of very considerable extent, ranking 

 amongst the lakes of Ireland as the second in size ; being inferior only to Lough 

 Neagh. 



CoREGONus CLUPEOiDES, Nilssou ? Cuun. — In a letter from the Rev. T. 

 Knox, of Toomavara, dated Jan. 29, 1838, and accompanying a specimen of a 

 fish procured at my request, was the following observation : " We have at last 

 been able to get the little fish mentioned by the fishermen as being found in 

 the Shannon in winter — it was sent from Killaloe. I believe it goes down the 

 river with the eels every winter; it takes no bait." The Rev. C. Mayne of 

 Killaloe — by whose' kind attention the specimen w-as secured — informs me, in 

 reply to some queries, " that it is called a Cimn by the fishermen of that place, 

 who state that it is never taken but in the eel-nets about Christmas, when the 

 'run of eels' is nearly over, and that they never saw more than seven or eight 

 caught in a year, seldom indeed so many." Killaloe, it should perhaps be 

 stated, is not less than eighty miles from the mouth of the Shannon. In the 

 hope of ascertaining the occurrence of this fish at Portumna, about twenty 

 miles higher up the river, I wrote to a correspondent there, at the same time 

 describing the species, and on the 24th of INIarch last received the following re- 

 ply. " I think it very uncertain whether there is such a fish in the Shannon, 

 but still some old fishermen say there is, and that they are a little smaller than the 

 common herring, but exactly the same shape and colour ; " and he again observes, 

 — "after making every hiquiry, I learn that about half a dozen white fish, like 



* Shane's Castle Park, near Antrim. 



f June 10, 1836. On opening the stomachs of six pollans, I found them all 

 filled with food, consisting chiefly of mature individuals of Gnmmams aquaticus, 

 and the larvae of various aquatic insects ; some shells of the genus Pisidium, 

 one of the fry of the three-spined stickleback {G aster ostetis), and a few frag- 

 ments of stone, also occurred. — W. T. (From Magazine Zoology and Botany, 

 vol. i.) 



