72 



ME. F. DAT OlS- THE LOCH-LEVETT TEOUT. 



taken in the summer .... The Grey-trout or Bill-trout, some 

 of them as big as a salmond ; greyish skinned and red fished, 

 a foot long, taken all the year over. Cendue or Camdue in 

 Irish, Blackhead, having a black spot on the top of its head, is 

 fat, big as a Dunbar herring, red fished, much esteemed." 



Pennant, in 1769, went to Loch Leven, and observed : — " The 

 fish of this lake are pike, small perch, fine eels, and most excel- 

 lent trouts, the best and the reddest I ever saw ; the largest 

 about 6 lb. in weight " (Journ. 4th ed. p. 69). In his 'British 

 Zoology,' 1776, he did not refer to any distinct species existing 

 in Loch Leven ; but after remarking on the large trouts of Lough 

 Neagh in Ireland, locally termed Buddaghs, he continued, " Trouts 

 (probably of the same species) are also taken in Hulse-water, a 

 lake in Cumberland, of a much superior size to those of Lough 

 Neagh. These are supposed to be the same with the trout of 

 the lake of Geneva, a fish I have eaten more than once, and 

 think but a very indiff"erent one " (iv. p. 299). 



The Eeverend A. Smith, ' Statistical Account of Kinross,' 

 1793, remarked that " In Loch Leven are all the diff'erent species 

 of hill, burn, and muir trout that are to be met with in Scot- 

 land, evidently appearing from the diversity of manner in which 

 they are spotted ; yet all three diff'erent kinds, after being two 

 years in the loch and arriving at | lb, or 1 lb. in weight, are red 

 in the flesh, as all the trout of every kind in the loch are, except, 

 perhaps, those newly brought down by the floods, or such as are 

 sickly. The Silver-grey trout, with about four or five spots on 

 the middle of each side, is apparently the original native of the 

 loch, and in many respects the finest fish of the whole. The fry 

 of all kinds are white in the flesh till they come to the size of a 



herring, about the beginning of the third year Those 



called bull-trout are believed to be the old ones. In spring, 

 1791, a large one was caught that weighed 10 lb." 



Dr. Walker, in his posthumous ' Essays on Natural History 

 and Eural Economy,' 1812, observed of the trout in Loch Leven: — 

 " The first most frequent is called at the 23lace Orey Trout, and is 

 a fish not distinctly described by naturalists ; it is found usually 

 from 1 lb. to 2 lb. in weight, at times considerably larger. This 

 is supposed to be Salmo levenensis, N. The second, called by 

 the inhabitants Bull-trout, Salmo taurinus, N., supposed to be a 

 distinct species ; but there is reason to suppose this is the male 

 of the above. These two are generally known in Edinburgh as 



