Sea-Trout 155 



spots there are on their sides the more parasites are there in their gills, 

 and sometimes the gills are nearly eaten away. See illustration of a 

 gill (Fig. 14S), and also illustration of the difference between a salmon 

 (Fig. 150) and a salmon bulhtrout (Fig. 149). These fish are inferior 

 to the salmon, and usually bring twopence to threepence per pound less 

 in the market. Their ilesh is often whiter and not so well flavoured. 

 Having had several bull-trout from the Tweed, I could discern a great 

 difference between them and the bull-trout of the Tay. Several years 

 ago I drew the attention of Sir Herbert Maxwell to them, and he was 

 astonished to hear that we had bull-trout up to 40 lbs. and over. Having 

 captured one 42 lbs. shortly afterwards, I sent him a photograph of it, 

 and he declared it to be a bull-trout. I also broueht them under the 

 notice of Dr. Kingston Barton for examination, and he found them to 

 be seventeen per cent richer in fat than other salmon. 



When he called one day at our fish-house, I drew his attention to 

 the spots on the fish, and he thought the richness of the feeding might 

 cause these as well as the parasites in the gills. Since then our 

 marking of fish on the Tay has clearly proved that the so-called bull- 

 trout of the Tay and many other rivers are true salmon. These bull- 

 trout should not, of course, be confused with the bull-trout of the 

 sea-trout. The former have the same number of scales from the 

 dead fin to the lateral line as the salmon. All the erilse kelts, small 

 spring fish kelts, and in fact all the kelts which we marked, were 

 so-called bull-trout when they returned again. I have watched 

 them carefully in our fish-house, and in July 1907 there were nineteen 

 per cent of them. 



It is remarkable that almost all the bull-trout are females, and 

 this is, no doubt, accounted for by the fact that there is greater 

 mortality among the males during the spawning season, thus leaving 

 few but females to mark. From the study of these I am now con- 

 vinced that all fish — salmon, grilse and sea-trout —that have spawned 

 are inferior to fish that have not spawned. It was indeed an "eye- 

 opener" to me to find one of our wired smolts of 1905 return on 9th 

 August 1907 for the first time weighing 27 lbs,, for hitherto we 



