ces, and only slowly lose
them. Plenty of good food gives a silvery colour and round form to fish,
and the offspring retain these characters. Feeding on shell-fish thickens
the stomach, and in many generations, probably, the gillaroo trout becomes
so distinct a variety, as to render it doubtful if it be not a distinct
species. Even these smallest salmon trout have green backs, _only_ black
spots, and silvery bellies; from which it is evident that they are the
offspring of lake trout, or _lachs forelle_, as it is called by the
Germans; whilst the river trout, even when 4 or 5 lbs., as we see in one
of these fish, though in excellent season, have red spots.

_Char._

_Phys._ The char[1] is a most beautiful and excellent fish, and is, of
course, a fish of prey. Is he not an object of sport to the angler?--_Hal.
_ They generally haunt deep, cool lakes, and are seldom found at the
surface till late in the autumn. When they are at the surface they will,
however, take either fly or minnow. I have known some caught in both these
ways; and have myself taken a char, even in summer, in one of those
beautiful, small, deep lakes in the Upper Tyrol, near Nazereit; but it was
where a cool stream entered from the mountain; and the fish did not rise,
but swallowed the artificial fly under water. I have fished for them in
many lakes, without success, both in England and Scotland, and also
amongst the Alps; and I am told the only sure way of taking them is by
sinking a line with a bullet, and a hook having a live minnow attached to
it, in the deep water which they usually haunt; and in this way, likewise,
I have no doubt the _umbla_, or _ombre chevalier_, might be taken.

[1] _Sabling_ of the Germans.

_Naturalization of Fish._

_Hal._ At Lintz, on the Danube, I could have given you a fish dinner of a
different description, which you might have liked as a variety. The four
kinds of perch, the _spiegil carpfen_, and the _siluris glanis_; all good
fish, and which I am sorry we have not in England, where I doubt not they
might be easily naturalized, and where they would form an admirable
addition to the table in inland counties. Since England has become
Protestant, the cultivation of fresh water fish has been much neglected.
The _burbot_, or _lotte_, which already exists in some of the streams
tributary to the Trent, and which is a most admirable fish, might be
diffused without much difficulty; and nothing could be more easy than