Sea -Trout 



■ 51 



At one time the Coquet was a sjjlendid salmon and grilse river, 

 but now holds very k\v. This is not to be wondered at, as the 

 passage o\'er so many high weirs prevents salmon reaching the 

 higher parts of the river to spawn. A sea-trout will surmount weirs 

 and go through difficult fish-passes where a salmon would lail. 1 am 

 at present designing hsh-passes tor these weirs to allow salmon to pass 

 up, and I hope to see the time when salmon will again be plentiful 

 in this ri\'er. 



I have compared these so-called bull-troLit with the sea-trout ot 

 the Tay, which are never called bLill-trout, and I can find no cliflerence 

 except that the large ones in the Tay are better fed. They have all 

 the same number of scales — fourteen from the adipose tm to the lateral 

 line. Many oi them are supposed to be crosses between a salmon and 

 a sea-trout, which no doubt some ot them are. I gi\'e the photograph of 

 one which the fishermen of the Coquet thought to Ije a cross (Fig. 139). 

 What the result of the after-cross would be I leave others to judge. 

 These sea-trout are distributed o\'er the whole of Great Britain, but 

 are more plentiful in the Coquet and in the Tweed than in any other 

 river I know of As anglers are the people who are chiefly concerned 

 with the lite-history ot the Salmonicke, there ought to be some simple 

 way for their determining what salmon, sea-trout, and trout are, 

 without having to wade through books and become more confused 

 than ever. Saliiio salar should be called lr_\', parr, smolt, salmon ; 

 foul salmon in the spawning season, and belt salmon after spawning. 

 Salnio eriox should be called try, parr, yellow-lm, sea-trout ; and if a 

 further distinction is wished, grilse could be called voune salmon, 

 and whitling young sea-trout. 



In small rivers, such as the Dovey in North Whales, where salmon 

 have been over-netted and poached, they have decreased while the sea- 

 trout have increased, showing that sea-trout are more difficult to 

 exterminate than salmon. When on this river not long ago I found 

 that the belief amongst tishermen there is, that the sea-trout — Sahuo 

 criox — is different Irom the bull-trout ; but besides sea-trout and bull- 

 trout they have another which they call brith dail, because it is 



