On the Pollan of Lough Neagh. 249 



as by this trivial appellation it is invariably known in its native dis- 

 trict."* 



The above description of the Pollan was read before the Zoolo- 

 gical Society of London on the 9th of June last. The following 

 particulars I then looked forward to publish in a paper on the 

 fishes generally that inhabit Lough Neagh, but, until this can ap- 

 pear, the present contribution towards the history of a species which 

 is certainly distinct from the Gwyniad and Vendace, (the only other 

 Coregoni known with certainty as British at the present time) may 

 even, in this incomplete state, possess some interest. 



The earliest notice of the species that I have seen is in Harris's 

 history of the county of Down, published in the year 1744, where, 

 as well as in the Statistical surveys of the counties of Armagh and 

 Antrim, it has subsequently been introduced as one of the fishes of 

 Lough Neagh, under the name of Pollan ; but, as may be expected 

 in works of this nature, little more than its mere existence is men- 

 tioned, t 



The habits of this fish do not, with the exception of its having 

 been in some instances taken with the artificial fly, differ in any 

 marked respect from those of the vendace and gwyniad, and are in 

 accordance with such species of continental Europe as are confined 

 to inland waters, and of whose history we have been so fully inform- 

 ed by Bloch. The pollan approaches the shore in large shoals not only 

 during spring and summer, but when the autumn is far advanced. 

 The usual time of fishing for it is in the afternoon, the boats return- 

 ing the same evening. On the days of the 23d, 24th, and 25th of 

 September 1834, which I spent in visiting the fishing stations at Lough 

 Neagh, it was, along with the common and great lake trout, (Salmo 

 Jario and S.ferox,) caught plentifully in sweep-nets, cast at a very 

 short distance from the shore. About a fortnight before this time, 

 or in the first week of September, the greatest take of the pollan ever 

 recollected occurred at the bar-mouth, where the river Six-mile- 

 water enters the lake. At either three or four draughts of the net, 

 140 hundreds (123 individuals to the hundred) or 17220 fish were 

 taken ; at one draught more were captured than the boat could with 

 safety hold, and they had consequently to be emptied on the neigh- 



tual examination of specimens being the only true criterion by which to judge of 

 such closely allied species as this genus presents. 



* Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1835, p. 77. 



f In Harris's " Down," and Coote's " Armagh," it is supposed to be the same 

 as the shad. In Dubourdieu's " Antrim," the scientific appellation of Salmo 

 lavarelus is given in addition to its provincial name. 



