A Salmon Trout from Berwick on Tweed E. Albin 1740.
Trocta, the Trout. Albin Fecit, 1741.
The TROUT
Is a very valuable river-fish; the characters of which are these. It has a long body; its head is short and round, its nose blunt at the end: its tail is very broad; its mouth large, and each jaw furnished with one row of sharp teeth. In its palate there are three parcels of teeth, each of an oblong figure, in the congeries, and all meeting in an angle near the end of the nose; the tongue has also six, eight, or ten teeth on it. It is very beautifully variegated on the sides with red spots. The colour of the Trout, and of its spots, varies greatly in different waters and different seasons; yet you may reduce each to one species.
In Llyndivi (a lake in South Wales), there are Trouts called Coch y Dail, marked with red and black spots about the size of a sixpence; others, not spotted, and of a reddish hue, which sometimes weigh from eight to ten pounds: they are very ill tasted. In Lough Neagh, in Ireland, there are Trouts called Buddagh, many of which weigh thirty pounds; others are taken of a much superior size, in Hulse Water (a lake in Cumberland), the same as those Trouts in the lakes of Geneva.
The stomachs of the common Trouts are very thick and muscular, as they feed on the shell fish of lakes and rivers as well as the small fish; and take gravel or stones into their stomachs to assist in comminuting the testaceous parts of their food. The Trouts of certain lakes in Ireland are remarkable for the great thickness of their stomachs, which, from some resemblance to the digesting organs in birds, are called Gizzards; and the species which have them, are called Gizzard Trouts. These stomachs are frequently served up to the table in Ireland, under the nomination of Gizzards.