FISHES 507 



pounds : one was killed a few years ago which weighed fifty- 

 six ; but the ordinary weight is from seven to twenty pounds 

 each. They are found chiefly in the deep water below House- 

 Holm island ; they are, however, sometimes taken in all parts 

 of the Lake, though but seldom, except in October, which is 

 their spawning time. During that month the King of Paterdale 

 usually sets a net across the foot of Coldrill-Beck, but not one 

 has ever been known to enter any other of the streams. Some 

 of the trouts, however, escape the net, but are generally taken 

 by the neighbouring farmers, who strike them at night-time 

 with spears by the light of a torch. These unlawful practices 

 the Gentlemen of the neighbourhood have not been able to pre- 

 vent : it is indeed impossible they should, for the farmers of 

 the fisheries connive at them, because the grey trouts prey upon 

 the small trouts and char, upon which their profits depend; and 

 so voracious are they that I have seen two trouts, near a pound 

 weight each, taken out of the belly of one of the large ones. 

 They are taken with nets, but will sometimes rise at the fly : 

 their strength, however, makes them very difficult to kill.* 1 



Walker, who wrote about ten years after Clarke, has left a 

 similar statement : ' The Grey Trout of this Lake grows to 30 

 or 40 pounds weight, and goes up the brooks and rivers to spawn, 

 and takes up its abode in the deepest part of the water at other 

 times, and therefore is very seldom caught.' 2 Mr. C. C. Hodg- 

 son tells me that he once caught a fine, pink-fleshed Trout in the 

 Eamont, shortly after the river leaves the lake, and this he 

 thought must be a small example of S.ferox, var. It may be con- 

 venient to state here that a hump-backed variety of the Common 

 Trout inhabits the upper waters of the Caldew, near Sebergham. 



As regards the introduction of fish into Lakeland waters, Mr. 

 H. Leavers informs me that some eight thousand fry of Salmo 

 Levensis have been introduced into the Eden near Carlisle 

 during the last five or six years; these came from Howietoun. 

 Similar experiments are being made, I understand, in other 

 Lakeland waters. The Yorkshire Post of February 27, 1889, 

 stated that Captain Machel had just caused 1000 examples of 



1 Survey of the Lakes, p. 38. 



2 From London to the Lakes, p. 68. 



