THE TEOUT. 129 



pounds, but in others, the Hampshire rivers for instance, 

 three and four-pound fish are frequently caught. Perhaps 

 six pounds might be said to be the greatest weight attained 

 by common river trout, I mean by those which really fre- 

 quent the rivers, for out of large ponds and lakes fed by 

 running water, true common river or Brown Trout have 

 been taken of between twelve and fourteen pounds. 



And this remark leads me at once to make some 

 jottings in reference to a trout about which I own I am 

 specially enthusiastic, I mean the " Thames Trout." He 

 is the " Prince of Trout ;" and he is " one by himself/' 

 as the country folk say. He differs from all other kinds 

 of trout. He is not of any distinctive species yet recog- 

 nized by naturalists, yet he is very distinctive. He is not 

 of the family of the Great Lake Trout, Salmo ferox ; nor 

 is he a Bull Trout, Salmo eriox ; nor a White or Sea 

 Trout, Salmo trutta. Ichtbyologically he is certainly a 

 Brown or Common Trout, Salmo fario, but truly an 

 uncommon Common Trout. Now Brown Trout, as I have 

 said, though all of one family, vary very much according 

 to the water they inhabit, and differ one from another in 

 shape and colouring, in texture of flesh and taste. Yet 

 they are all Brown or Common Trout. But the Thames 

 Trout, by which I mean not the varieties of trout which 

 have been very properly put into the Thames of late years, 

 imported from the High Wycombe stream and elsewhere, 

 but the veritable Thames trout, the "real original/' 

 known to generations of anglers back to the time of 

 Walton, is entitled to rank by himself, for he really is a 

 very distinctive fish, sui generis in form, colouring, and, it 

 may be added, habits ; while the size he reaches places 

 him outside the ordinary varieties of common trout. It 



K 



