Fishes. 4 715 



the examination of four specimens of very fine Loch Leven trout, 

 purchased in the market that morning. On their stomachs being laid 

 open and examined with a lens, they were found to be filled with 

 Entomostraca ; and these I have always found to constitute the food 

 of the early spring trout of Loch Leven. 



During the remainder of the year the ordinary Loch Leven trout live 

 on the small Buccinum and the common food of trout, with which the 

 lake abounds : they rise readily at an artificial fly, and may, no doubt, 

 be taken with worms or minnows, or any of the ordinary bait for 

 trout. 



It has been asserted, since these discoveries were made, that the 

 Entomostraca form the staple food of most of the finer sorts of lake 

 trout. I believe the statement to be very probably correct, but I have 

 not myself had an opportunity of verifying the fact. Those who 

 doubted all these facts at first went soon afterwards, on finding they 

 could not be refuted, into the opposite extreme, and asserted that the 

 Entomostraca, of which, by-the-bye, they had no very clear idea, 

 formed the most nourishing food of fishes. I lay no claim to such 

 sweeping generalizations, being simply contented with what I can 

 prove by demonstration. 



The Herring. 



Having thus cleared the way, as it were, of some of the obstacles to 

 the successful prosecution of the inquiry, I next proceeded with that 

 of the food of the herring. The difficulty was to obtain the herring 

 from the deep sea, in fine order and as remote as possible from 

 its spawning condition. When found near the coasts, the herring is 

 either about to spawn or has already spawned : it is, to a certain 

 extent more or less, a foul fish, and the food it may take at that time 

 is not to be held to be its natural food ; this can only be made out in 

 the herring when in the finest order and in the deep sea, to which he 

 seems annually to retire. This part of the inquiry was accompanied 

 by a good deal of trouble and considerable expense : the herring had 

 to be examined on both coasts of Scotland, and indeed under a variety 

 of circumstances. 



Of the hundreds and hundreds of herrings I have examined, with 

 this view, I remember but a very few in whose stomachs anything was 

 found excepting Entomostraca of various species. Of the specimens 

 to which I allude as having been feeding on other prey, one had 



