FRESH-WATER TROUT— LIFE HISTORY AND AS FOOD. 213 



long. It worried it as long as seen, like a terrier at a rat. A few years previously 

 Major Tarle found a iine Test trout choked by an eel it had attempted to swallow. 

 Mr. Francis Francis witnessed the river lamprey removing the stones over trout 

 redds, and doing incalculable injury to the ova. 



Life history. — All the various forms of trout have their par stage.* The size 

 to which the adults attain, depends upon the suitability of the water inhabited 

 and the amount of available food. Thus, as already observed, in some mountainous 

 districts they may never exceed three or four ounces in weight, while young 

 hatched from the same batch of eggs may attain to pounds. They are said to be 

 long-lived fish ; one was stated to have been kept twenty-eight years in a well in 

 Dumbarton Castle ; another is said to have been fifty-three years in a well in the 

 orchard of Mr. Mossop, of Board Hall, near Broughton-in-Fumess. While in The 

 Meld, February 9th, 1884, will be found the account of a trout taken from the 

 nver Slitrig about thirty years previously, when it was put into a spring well in 

 the garden of Mr. W. Leithead, Crowbyres, and lived there until the first week in 

 February, 1884, when it died. During its lifetime it was well fed and kindly 

 treated, but never weighed more than a pound. Possibly these forms were sterile 

 as such an age in stock ponds is unheard of.f 



Inherited instinct may induce trout, as at Loch Leven, to ascend streams to 

 breed as their ancestors did before them : but it would not lead them to under- 

 stand that the conditions of those streams, due to drainage works, were altered, 

 so that rapid subsidence ensues, leaving the ova dry. 



In 1875 ten small trout from Lochy Bhravin were introduced into Loch Toll 

 au Lochain, Ross-shire, 2250 feet above the sea, and up to that time entirely 

 destitute of fish. On September 2nd and 3rd, 1884, Mr. J. Fowler and the Rev. 

 M. Fowler took seventeen with a fly weighing 30 lb. The two largest were, one 

 23 in. long, weighing 5 lb. 13 oz., the second 22^ in. long, weighing 5 lb. 5 oz., 

 the remainder varied between 1 lb. 13 oz. and 1 lb. 1 oz. In these fish were 

 beetles, flies, fresh-water shrimps Oammarus, and various insects. Shell fish as 

 Ancylus, and snails Limnea, are found in the Loch. 



As food. — Its value differs with the localities from whence it has been taken. 

 Its old name was "the venison of the waters," and denoted the general estimation 

 in which it was, and is still held. It is in its primest season from May until the 

 end of September, deteriorating in and after the breeding period unless among 

 such as are sterile. Some consider the females as food to be superior to the 

 males. 



The difference in the colour of the flesh of trout is interesting for several 

 reasons, and maybe seen from as highly coloured as in a salmon to being perfectly 

 white, but this colour is not invariably a test as to its suitability for the table, for 

 some white-fleshed forms are excellent, and those which are rosy-fleshed not 

 invariably so, still the reverse is generally the case. I carefully examined a large 

 number in Sutherlandshire, mostly from Loch Assynt, in June, 1886, and found 

 the flesh to be of all colours, from as red as a salmon to quite white, but as food 

 they seemed all equally good. Although, as I have already stated, in some places 



* Yearling trout are such as are hatched in the winter, say of 1884-85 (i.e. February), and which 

 cease to be yearlings at the commencement of the following spawning season '86. Mr. Andrews, 

 of Guildford, in the first week of October, 1884, sent Lochleven trout and brook trout hatched 

 January and February the same year to the Exhibition tanks. South Kensington, and on arrival 

 they measured up to 6f in. in length. 



f " June 1st, 1876, a trout about 3 in. long was taken from the Moonzie burn by Mr. James 

 Gray, of Lanohous in Fife, and placed in Lady Well, which is situated at the east end of the 

 village, and it is now over 17 in. long and weighs about 2 lb. The children feed it with worms and 

 bread. In 1835 a trout about 5 in. long was taken from the river Leader by a man named 

 J. Crossley, and put into a well in the town of Earleston, where the village children fed it many 

 years. It grew well for some time, then got emaciated, and died in 1869, but never increased in 

 weight over 1} lb. " (GreviUe P., Field, November 22nd, 1884). A correspondent of The New 

 Sporting Magazine, for November, 1840, observed " that a friend of his has kept trout in a kind 

 of store stream, and having fed them with every kind of food, has had some increase from 1 lb. to 

 10 lb. in four years. Mr. Toomer placed in a pond a trout of 3 J lb. which he caught in the river 

 in a storm, and in about a year it had grown to about 9 lb." (Daniel, Rural Sports). 



