Sc. and north. Also 6 whiddelynge, 9 whitlin. [f. WHITE a. + -LING. Cf. G. weissling whiting.
Late OE. hwítling ‘glaucus’ is perh. the whiting.]
A fish of the salmon family, not certainly identified; app. the young of the bull-trout, Salmo eriox. Also whitling-trout. Cf. WHITING sb. 1 b (a).
1597–8. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 111. For floukes and eght whiddelynges, xviijd.
1769. J. Wallis, Nat. Hist. Northumbld., I. 389. The Whitling-Trout … is taken in the Till and Tweed from ten to twenty inches.
1793. Statist. Acc. Scot., VIII. 488. In some parts of the Ern, there are … great numbers of sea trouts…. The fishermen call them whitlings.
1830. in T. Doubleday, Coquet-Dale Fishing Songs (1852), 84.
| The Tweed, he may brag o’ his sawmon, | |
| An’ blaw of his whitlins the Till. |
1867. F. Francis, Bk. Angling, ix. 297. There is a disputed point as regards the bull-trout, whether or no he is the veritable ‘whitling.’
attrib. 1769. [see above].
1834. Jardine, in Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, I. No. 2. 52. They … are taken with whitling flies.
1847. Stoddart, Angler’s Comp., 84. On rivers, like the Tweed or Tay, I recommend the use of a whitling hook.
