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of feeding on their roe. When their own time
comes, towards the close of summer and the
beginning of autumn, they draw near to the
coast, and frequent the mouths of the most
quick running streams. The female, followed
by the male, rubs herself against the pebbles,
to be more easily relieved of her eggs.

The ferrat, then (or " lavaret," a name which
seems to be derived from the extreme cleanliness
of the body), is the Coregonus lavaretus
of Lacépède, and the Salmo lavaretus of
Linnaeus. Pennant considered the gwyniad of
Wales and of the Cumberland lakes the same as
the ferrat of the Lake of Geneva.

The present writer has never seen a gwyniad,
but the figures of it are much more herring
shaped, and less deep and square built, than the
ferrat, which weighs from two to four pounds.
These fish die immediately they are taken out
of the water. In places where the catch is abundant,
they are salted and smoked. Their food
is insects, the larvae of dragon flies, and such
like. In the Lake of Geneva, between Rolle and
Morges, where they are called " gravans," or
"gravanches," their nose is more pointed, their
flavour inferior, and their dimensions usually
smaller. During eleven months of the year
the ferrats remain constantly in the deeps.
They are only caught at the close of summer,
with the help of a net and a lantern, by night.
Whether the ferrat be a distinct species from the
gwyniad, or only a local variety, it is equally
worthy of the attention of the Acclimatisation
Society. The French society has lately stocked
the rivers of the department of the Lower Alps
with seven hundred and forty thousand of its

In the Lake of Neuchâtel, there are lavarets
which are called " palées" and " bondelles." A
great many are salted and sent to a distance,
like sardines.

The ferrat has become naturalised in Lake
Maduit and several other Pomeranian lakes,
whither it was transported from the Lac du
Bourget, by the orders of Frederick the Great,
and where it thrives and multiplies abundantly.
Its flesh, white and savoury, without any small
bones, affords a most delicate article of food. The
favourite resorts of the great marene are deep
waters with a bottom of sand or clay, where it
congregates in immense shoals, mounting to the
surface in autumn to deposit its eggs amongst the
beds of water weeds that line the shallows. It does
not begin to breed until it is five or six years old.
In the winter it is caught beneath the ice with
nets, whose meshes are large enough to allow
the little ones to escape. Surely this is a good
new pond fish; and if it has been acclimatised
in Pomerania, it may be acclimatised in England.
Will Mr. Buckland patronise the grand marene?
As the Prussians treat us so civilly, perhaps
they will send us Pomeranian spawn; or will it
be better to apply to the fountain headto
our allywho has annexed both the Lac du
Bourget and its little sister, the Lake of Aigue

Again: a very acceptable species would be
the blue umber, l'ombre bleu, or Bésole,
Coregonus Wartmanni, so named after a physician
of St. Gall, who described it with great exactitude.
It has a crescent shaped tail, a blunt
conical nose, no teeth, equal jaws, a straight
lateral line marked with a series of black points,
a blue general tint without spots, yellow fins
edged with blue; length, from eighteen inches
to two feet. Wartman's coregon is found in
several Swiss lakes, and especially in the Lake
of Constance, where the fishermen look upon it
as the fishermen of the north regard the herring.
All summer long, from twenty to fifty boats are
employed in this fishery, and during the season
several millions of fish are taken. Those that
are not eaten fresh, are salted, and sent to
France and Germany. Wartman's coregon feeds
on insects, worms, and the remains of vegetables.
It spawns at the commencement of winter. It
mostly swims at a considerable depth, and only
rises to the surface during heavy rains or
thunderstorms. When the cold sets in, it
retreats to the bottom. Methinks Wartman's
blue umber deserves to be thought of.

A concluding word touching two of the Swiss
fishes, the most desirable to naturalise in the
ponds and lakes of the United Kingdom: the
only point about which the learned are agreed is
their culinary aptitudes; as to their specific
distinctions, doctors differ. Professor W. von
Rapp, of Tübingen, who has examined and
collected the fishes of the Lake of Constance, who
has visited Neuchâtel and Geneva, with the
object of examining and collecting the fish there,
with the special purpose of comparing them
with those of the Lake of Constance; who, for
many years, has been occupied with the study
of fish, and particxilarly of sea fish; who was
the instructor of Dr. Günther, of the British
Museum,—Professor von Rapp states that the
ferrat of Geneva is also found in the Lake of
Constance, and is there called Sandfelchen, and
that the ferrat is different from the Salmo
lavaretus. He says that Salmo lavaretus, Coregonus
lavaretus, and Salmo Wartmanni, are synonyms
for the same fish, the Blaufelchen, which is even
better than the ferrat, being, in fact, the very
best fish of the Lake of Constance, although it
suffers much from carriage. The younger fishes
of this species (about seven inches long) are
called Gangfische.

The fish which in the Lake of Neuchatel is
called La palée, and by Cuvier, Coregonus palea,
is not different from the Blaufelchen of the
Lake of Constance. The professor, however,
remarks that, at Neuchâtel, two sorts of palée
are distinguishedthe black and the white;
that perhaps these are really two separate
species, and that only one of them is the real
Blaufelchen, the cream of the cream amongst
freshwater fish.