248 DR DAVY ON THE SALMONID^. 



fecundation and hatching ; that, for this purpose, the migratory kinds quit the sea 

 for the river, the lake-fish the still water for the streams, and the river-fish their 

 ordinary places of abode for the smaller tributaries. 



From such information as I have been able to collect, I am led to infer, that 

 though this belief is commonly well founded, there are exceptions ; and that the 

 conditions to successful breeding are not quite so restricted as has been generally 

 supposed. 



In a former paper, which was honoured with a place in the Transactions of 

 the Society, entitled, " Some observations on the Charr, relating chiefly to its 

 generation and early stage of life," proof was adduced that this fish more commonly 

 avoids than seeks running water for the purpose of breeding, and that the gravelly 

 and rocky shoals of the lakes it inhabits are its favourite breeding localities, ra- 

 ther than the bed of a river or brook, where the water is in rapid motion. 



In artificial breeding, not only have the ova of the charr, but also of the com- 

 mon trout and salmon, been successfully hatched without the use of running water, 

 merely by changing the water daily. And in accordance with this, I have been 

 well assured of similar instances in nature, that is, of the ova of the trout and of 

 the salmon having been laid, like those of the charr, on beds of gravel in lakes, and 

 where it is believed they have been hatched. I shall mention the few instances 

 which I believe are worthy of credit. In Connemara, county Galway, Ireland, 

 there is a lake, about five miles from Clifden, called Lough Anaspick (The 

 Lake of Contention), abounding in good trout, and which, from its situation in a 

 flat part of the country, is fed more by the rain that falls into it, than by the 

 stream which enters it, — a stream so small as to be unfit for a breeding place, — 

 the same remark applying to the little outflowing stream. On a gravelly shoal 

 of this lake I have been assured by fishermen residing in the neighbourhood, that 

 the trout deposit their spawn, that they have been seen in the act, and that the 

 roe has been found there. 



In Blea-tarn, in the Lake District of England, observations of the same kind 

 have been made. I have been informed that the roe of the trout has been de- 

 tected in plenty near the shore. The person from whom the information was 

 obtained remarked that such a laying of the spawn was unavoidable, inasmuch 

 as, from obstructing obstacles, the fish could neither run up nor down the inflow- 

 ing or outflowing stream. In this instance it was stated, that the favourite place 

 of spawning was near to the fall of the little stream into the tarn, its principal 

 feeder. 



At Lough Melvin, in Ireland, a lake in which the gillaroo trout is plentiful, 

 I learned, whilst there, that this trout never enters the tributaries with the other, 

 the common trout, in the spawning season, and that it had never been seen in them ; 

 from whence the fishermen, my informants, who watched the streams, inferred, 

 with confidence, that it bred exclusively in the lake. But though confident of 



