NATURAL HISTORY OF 3RITISH SALMONIDE. 175 
place in systematic arrangements, has been a matter of doubt and 
dispute. That his whole bill of fare cannot be correctly filled up 
is very probable. But sufficient data, I think, exist to make out a 
tolerable carte of his favourite dishes. Oh! those words of learned 
sound, and little meaning, that must be used to describe this food 
in the jargon of science, make one almost shudder. That he is, 
then, zmsectivorous, vermitvorous, molluscivorous, piscivorous, and 
probably herbivorous, is all but certain. I have taken him with at 
least twenty different kinds of lake flies. I have seen him in his 
junior state, dragged up like a malefactor amongst slimy eels on a 
night line baited with worms. He has risen to my hook baited 
with five species of little fishes—namely, the loach, stickleback, 
fry of trout, and pike, and the gudgeon. His addiction to these 
dainties has been proved to me numberless times by a very un- 
willing visit to my net. 
There is, however, so far as I have been able to observe, one 
condition necessary to his indulgence in these luxuries. They 
must be in a comparatively minute form, and presented to him on 
a link of clear, clean gut. As a general rule, the limit of his taste 
in this respect does not exceed baits of three or perhaps four 
inches. He must be hard up for a dinner if he goes beyond these 
dimensions. To be sure it has been stated—what, indeed, of fishes 
has not?—that, like the pike, he attacks prey of a considerable 
size. Possibly this may be so. ... Yet I have trolled with pike 
tackle and larger baits, how often I know not; but never, in any 
instance, did fevox favour me with a call while engaged in this kind 
of work. 
Of his feeding on small shells and larvae, which are to be found 
in large quantities on the bottom of lakes, the evidence, though in- 
ferential, assumes a look of certainty, on examining the contents of 
his stomach. The débrzs of these semi-digested creatures is there 
to be seen and felt clearly enough. Amongst the mass are traces 
of apparently green vegetable matter; but whether these are the 
remains of a salad of aquatic herbs is problematic. 
Whatever be his food, there is no doubt that the Great Lake 
trout will attain, under favourable conditions, to a very great 
size, though I have never happened myself to meet with any 
remarkably large specimens, either alive or ‘stuffed, nor do I 
find any such anthentically recorded. Stoddart mentions one 
