On the Pollan of Lough Neayh. 249 
as by this trivial appellation it is invariably known in its native dis- 
trict."* 
The above description of the Pollan was read before the Zoolo- 
gical Society of London on the 9th of June last. The following 
particulars I then looked forward to publish in a paper on the 
fishes generally that inhabit Lough Neagh, but, until this can ap- 
pear, the present contribution towards the history of a species which 
is certainly distinct from the Gwyniad and Vendace, (the only other 
Coregoni known with certainty as British at the present time) may 
even, in this incomplete state, possess some interest. 
The earliest notice of the species that I have seen is in Harris's 
history of the county of Down, published in the year 1744, where, 
as well as in the Statistical surveys of the counties of Armagh and 
Antrim, it has subsequently been introduced as one of the fishes of 
Lough Neagh, under the name of Pollan ; but, as may be expected 
in works of this nature, little more than its mere existence is men- 
tioned, t 
The habits of this fish do not, with the exception of its having 
been in some instances taken with the artificial fly, differ in any 
marked respect from those of the vendace and gwyniad, and are in 
accordance with such species of continental Europe as are confined 
to inland waters, and of whose history we have been so fully inform- 
ed by Bloch. The pollan approaches the shore in large shoals not only 
during spring and summer, but when the autumn is far advanced. 
The usual time of fishing for it is in the afternoon, the boats return- 
ing the same evening. On the days of the 23d, 24th, and 25th of 
September 1834, which I spent in visiting the fishing stations at Lough 
Neagh, it was, along with the common and great lake trout, (Salmo 
fario and S.ferox,) caught plentifully in sweep-nets, cast at a very 
short distance from the shore. About a fortnight before this time, 
or in the first week of September, the greatest take of the pollan ever 
recollected occurred at the bar-mouth, where the river Six-mile- 
water enters the lake. At either three or four draughts of the net, 
140 hundreds (123 individuals to the hundred) or 17220 fish were 
taken ; at one draught more were captured than the boat could with 
safety hold, and they had consequently to be emptied on the neigh- 
tual examination of specimens being the only true criterion by which to judge of 
such closely allied species as this genus presents. 
* Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1835, p. 77. 
f In Harris's " Down," and Coote's " Armagh," it is supposed to be the same 
as the shad. In Dubourdieu's " Antrim," the scientific appellation of Salmo 
lavarelus is given in addition to its provincial name. 
