124 SALMON AND TROUT. 
NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH 
SALMONID A. 
A KNOWLEDGE—even if only a very moderate one—of the 
natural history and habits of fish is generally admitted to be 
an important element of success in angling. The history of 
the salmon and trout species is especially interesting, in some 
of its aspects even important, as bearing on the national supply 
of fish food, and I therefore make no apology for prefacing, by 
a sketch of their habits from the Angler-Naturalist’s stand- 
point, the chapters descriptive of the practical art of catching 
them. 
In this essay I have adopted the division or grouping of the 
different species of British Sa/monide in two great classes: the 
silver, or migratory, and the yellow, or non-migratory ; the first 
division consisting of those fish which migrate periodically to 
or from the sea, viz. the true salmon, the bull trout, and the 
sea trout ; and the second division of those the habits of which 
usually.or constantly confine them to the fresh water, whether 
lake or river, viz. the common, or yellow trout, the great lake 
trout, and the grayling. 
[In this second division must of course also be included the 
varieties of the charr and of the coregonus, or fresh-water 
herring ; but the habits and history of the latter are of less 
interest to the fisherman than to the ichthyologist, as they are 
confined to special localities and so far as I am aware never, or 
‘hardly ever,’ take either bait or fly.] 
