PEAL. 
203 
round, not cruciform, reddish. A remarkable difference was 
in the adipose fin, which in the female Peal is less, and not 
so far back. In this male it reached to near the base of the 
tail. It is worthy of notice that Sir Humphrey Davy, in his 
“Salmonia,” records something not unlike this, but in the 
opposite direction. In the month of October he obtained a 
considerable number of Sea Trouts, and all of them were 
males; but this may have been only a separation of the sexes 
in the course of migration, as was the case with a goodly 
number of Charr, kindly sent to me from Ireland by the 
Earl of Enniskillen, to whom I have been indebted for much 
assistance in the course of this work, and all of them were 
found to he males, as were an equal number caught at the 
same time and sent to the Bi-itish Museum. 
I have not been able to obtain satisfactory information- con- 
cerning the early stages of development of the Peal, nor of the 
descent of the young to the sea; but there is a fish, well known 
in some streams in the west, by the name of the White Trout, 
and of which I have no doubt of its being an early growth 
of the Peal; in which opinion I am confirmed by the authority 
of Sir William Jardine, whose acquaintance with the fishes of 
the Salmon tribe is generally acknowledged. But there can be 
no doubt that Avhen this smaller fish shews itself it is not earlier 
than about the end of its first year; and what forms a singular 
portion of its history, it is regularly found in some, perhaps 
small, numbers, in rivers where the full-grown Peal, its supposed 
parent, is not known to enter or breed. If even we may 
suppose that some examples of the adult fish have entered their 
own river and shed their spawn considerably earlier than the 
time when we have traced them to do so, for irregularity in 
this respect is not uncommon in all sorts of fishes, it can 
scarcely be believed even that the progress of the young can 
have so greatly outstripped that of the young Salmon, as to 
have reached the length of from four to six inches in the 
month of January, as I have known these to have done; although 
more frequently they begin to be caught in March, and from 
thence onward to May, in company with the Trout. After the 
last-named month they are found to have left the fresh water, 
and as we may judge, to seek a change of food in the depths 
of the sea, from which just at this time the full-grown fish are 
