INTERESTING NOTES ON TROUT-LIFE.
At a recent meeting of the Scotch Fisheries Improvement Association, held at Edinburgh, Mr Harvie-Brown communicated some notes on trout-life, which the Association considered of so much scientific interest, that it was resolved to engross them in the minutes. The notes are as follow:
‘The subject of coloration of flesh of trout is a much more intricate one than at first appears. I know of trout holding largely developed spawn in June and July in a loch in Sutherland, whose flesh is not pink only, but bright red like a salmon’s, and yet are not fit to be eaten. I know, also, in a limestone burn the very finest trout, which on the table are perfectly white in the flesh, whatever size they grow to; but in another limestone burn from the same sources, or nearly so, the trout are quite different in appearance externally, but equally white in flesh and equally delicious for eating.
‘I put a quarter-pound trout, along with others, into a previously barren loch. In two years some of these trout attained to four and a quarter pound-weight, developed huge fins and square or rounded tails, lost all spots, took on a coat of dark slime, grew huge teeth, and became feroces in that short time. The common burn trout, taken from a very high rocky burn up in the hills, in two years became indistinguishable from Salmo ferox. The first year they grew to about a pound, or a pound and a half, took on a bright silvery sheen of scales, were deep and high shouldered, lusty and powerful, more resembling Loch Leven trout than any others. This was when their feeding and condition were at their best; but as food decreased, and the trout rapidly increased in number, spawning in innumerable quantities, and with no enemies, the larger fish began to prey on the smaller, grew big teeth, swam deep, and lost colour, grew large fins and a big head, and became Salmo ferox so called. In two years more the food-supply became exhausted; and now the chain of lochs holds nothing but huge, lanky, kelty-looking fish and swarms of diminutive “black nebs,” neither of the sorts deserving of the angler’s notice. The first year they were splendid fish—rich and fat. Now they are dry and tasteless.’