COMMON TROUT. 
238 
condition, as regards size, colour, and goodness, of the most 
ordinary inhabitants of our streams. 
But there are other effects to which the Trout is liable from 
local situation and influences, and far less easy to be accounted 
for; since they involve a material interference with the structure 
of important organs, to such an extent as seems scarcely com- 
patible with its existence. The first we shall mention is 
represented by a figure in Mr. Yarrell’s work, vol. ii, p. 108; 
where the upper jaw is deficient, while the lower jaw is of the 
usual length. In other particulars this fish does not differ from 
other Trouts; the most remarkable circumstance concerning it 
being, that it is not a merely casual deformity of an individual 
but is common in lakes or pieces of water which lie at some’ 
considerable elevation in hills of great height. Such is the case 
in a small loch called Loch Dow, near Pitmain, in Inverness-shire; 
and a variety closely resembling it is found in Lough na 
Minna, in the county of Clare, in Ireland. This latter lake is 
on the top of a mountain, nearly seven hundred feet above the 
level of the sea, and four miles from it; and there are other 
deficiencies of structure, which are chiefly or solely seen in 
lofty situations, which we have seen recorded, or have ourselves 
been witness to. 
So long since as the times of Giraldus Cambrensis, in the 
twelfth century, it had been noticed that in the Llyn ’y Cwn, 
or Pool of Dogs, in Wales, there was a Trout which, I suppose 
not invariably, was deficient of the left eye; and the same was 
said of the Perch and Eel, which were found in the same 
water. Strange as this may appear, we learn from Mr. Hansard’s 
“Trout and Salmon Fishing in Wales,” that as regards the 
Trout, the fact has been confirmed by a fisherman of that 
neighbourhood, as also by the Hon. Daines Barrington. 
A Trout with a remarkable distortion of the spinal column 
into an arch at the situation of the adipose fin, is also reported 
from the same lake; and Dr. Fleming says that the same occurs 
in the River Eynion, in Cardiganshire. I have also obtained 
It from Caldew, in Cumberland, where they are common; and 
in these examples, of which two were sent to me, the head 
appeared unusually large; the hump or elevation was’ above the 
anal fin, which had only nine rays; and the adipose fin stood 
on the top of the arch, the body being again bent down at 
