168 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



The Britisli and Irish, sea trout may now be referred to as a whole, with the 

 proviso that it is generally held that the northern form is commonly recognized as 

 salmon-trout, Salmo trutta, and the southern or sewin as Salmo eriox, now better 

 known as S. camhricus. These varieties have been separated owing to certain 

 supposed structural differences, such as the form of the gill-covers, the strength 

 of the jaws, the number of teeth on the vomer, and the character of the tail fin ; 

 while the northern form has been said to possess from forty-nine to sixty-one 

 csecal appendages— rarely less — and the southern from thirty-nine to forty-seven. 

 It will, therefore, be necessary in this examination first to inquire whether these 

 statements are correct ; and secondly, if they are, do these different races pass 

 one into the other ? 



The shape of the body in the two forms, is admitted to be similar, but the 

 proportions of one part to the remainder difier in accordance with age, season, and 

 locality. In the yoimg, the length of the head is to that of the entire length some- 

 times as little as \, as seen in some whitlings or herlings in the Ouse, and on the 

 east coast of Scotland, and similar examples occasionally are found along the 

 south and west coasts. As the adult stage is reached, this pretematurally shortness 

 of the head is usually but not invariably lost, and along with it there is, as might be 



guished. Again, it will be found that the peal are most regular in their periodical immigrations, 

 which are quite distinct from the sea trout. As sure as ever a fiood comes down the southern 

 rivers in June, the first of the feal are regularly expected, and they never f aU to put in an appear- 

 ance and to furnish a fresh and very exciting sport. They take a spinning minnow perhaps more 

 freely than the fly at first, but a cunning fly-fisher may get his fair share of them. Their very track 

 along the coast line of the sea is as well known as the period of their arrival, and fixed nets are 

 run out at right angles to the shore, and to a distance of not more than a hundred yards in many 

 places, into which the peal will run their stupid heads as they travel along during the summer 

 nights, but never a sea trout is found among them, though red and grey mullet are occasionally 

 caught. Hundreds of summer visitors, during June and July, visit Anstey's Cove in the bay that 

 shelters Torquay, and many have found, if they are in luck, that an unexpected dish of peal just 

 fresh from the sea, is ready to be added to their picnic meal. Then will come the old discussion 

 when the fish is produced, as to what sort of a salmon is this. The delighted cockney will have 

 no hesitation in accepting it as a young salmon, and just the right size to suit the occasion ; a 

 patriotic Welshman may imagine that his own familiar sewin has lost its way in the ocean, and 

 wandered away to the southern coast ; while cosmopolitan anglers who have enjoyed their sport with 

 the sea trout will acknowledge the family likeness, and yet perhaps perceive some difference in shape 

 and structure, and begin to fancy that the peal is a distinct species in the great family of the 

 Salmonida3. 



On December 1st, " A South Devon Conservator " replied in The Field, that " near Plymouth 

 we reverse his trufi and peal theory, calling the early, thicker fish, from 2 lb. to 6 lb., ' truff,' and 

 the later and smaller fish 'peal.' We also find in the Yealm river neither take the fly as a rule, and, 

 I think not in the Plym, except at night, though they do in the Tavy freely. In the Yealm the 

 larger, thicker fish we call ' truff ' do not jump on being hooked , they fight hard under water ; the 

 J lb. to 2 lb. ' peal ' (as we call them) jump vigorously. Fish vary in every Devon river apparently. 

 There is in the Yealm, in spring, a fish larger than the salmon fry (' white-fish,' locally called), which 

 does take a fly." " Noss Mayo " concluded the correspondence by observing that " the Fowey and 

 Camel, in Cornwall, may be taken as equally representative salmon streams with the Dart, although 

 their sources are not in the Dartmoor watershed. In these two rivers ti'uff are occasionally, but not 

 frequently, met with, the principal branch of the Salmonidas next to the salar being the peal, which 

 is generally acknowledged in the district to be purely and simply the Salmo trutta. There seems 

 to be a settled conviction in the minds of some writers that peal rarely, if ever, weigh more than 2 lb. 

 What gave rise to such an idea it is difficult to state, except that probably observations of the 

 river were made when the later or ' school ' peal were running. Peal are caught weighing con- 

 siderably over 6 lb. In The Field of October 9th, is reported the capture of one weighing 7J lb., 

 and the man who took it is a professional fisherman of fifty years' experience. These larger fish 

 are not truff, and there is no discernible difference between them and peal of 1 lb., except in 

 size. Does not ' A South Devon Conservator ' make the common mistake of calling these first- 

 arriving and larger peal ' truff ' ? The ' white-fish ' of the Yealm, mentioned by the same corre- 

 spondent last week, I have found by comparison to be similar to the fish in Cornish rivers, which 

 are, in my opinion, more correctly termed 'peal spatirn.' These fish localize themselves in the 

 fresh water for a longer period than the fry of the salmon, which generally drop down to the 

 sea in the spring. Moreover, the so-called 'white-fish' never occur in a river where there are 

 no peal." 



