500 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



days' captivity, and was thought by experts to have los* a pound and a half in transit from Maine 

 to New Jersey, where it died. Its length was thirty inches, and its circumference eighteen. 

 Another, from Mooselucmaguntic, weighed eight and one-half pounds, and measured twenty -five 

 iuches. The Ncpigou River claims still heavier fish. Hallock mentions one said to have weighed 

 seventeen pounds. 



VARIATION. There are many local races of Trout; the same stream often contains dissimilar 

 forms, and those bred in different hatcheries may easily be distinguished. Whoever has seen the 

 display at the April opening of the trout season at Mr. Blackford's, in Fulton Market, New York, 

 can understand the possibility of almost infinite variety in form and tint within the limits of one 

 species. Fish inhabiting swift streams have lithe, trim bodies and long, powerful fins; those ii. 

 quiet lakes are stout, short-finued, and often overgrown. lu cool, limpid brooks, with sunlight, 

 much oxygen, and stimulating food, their skins are transparent and their hues vivid; in dark, slug- 

 gish pools they are somber and slimy, and are called "Black Trout." Agassiz noticed that those of 

 the same river varied accordingly as they haunted its sunny or shady side. They have the power 

 of changing their tint at will. The influence of the nerves over color was neatly demonstrated by 

 M. Pouchet, who produced a white side in a Trout by destroying the eye of that side. In the sea, 

 for reasons unexplained, both Trout and Salmon lose their gay colors and become uniform silvery 

 gray, with black spots. In the sea, too, the flesh assumes a reddish color, due no doubt to the 

 absorption of the pigments of crabs and shrimps eaten by the fish. Red flesh is also found in 

 some inland races. 



CHARACTERISTICS. Our Trout are strong feeders, but are dainty rather than greedy. They 

 consume moderate quantities of food, and it suits their capricious appetites to seize their prey 

 while living. They take objects at the surface with an upward leap instead of downward from 

 above like the Salmon. Of all foods they prefer the worms washed out of the bank, then gayly 

 colored flies, water insects, little fishes, larva?, and the eggs of fishes. Those in domestication are 

 usually fed on the heart, liver, and lungs of animals killed for the market. 



Their daintiness, shyness, cunning, and mettle render them favorites of the angler, who lures 

 them into his creel by many sly devices. The most skillful fisherman is he who places before them 

 least obtrusively the bait which their momentary whims demand, or a clever imitation thereof. 

 Trout are always in season from April to August, and in some States for a longer period. 



CULTURE. They have always been the pets of fish-culturists; indeed, the experiments of Dr. 

 Garlick and Professor Ackley, who inaugurated in 1853 the practice of this art in America, were 

 made with this fish. They become thoroughly domesticated, and are as much under the control 

 of their owner as his horses and cattle. They have been acclimatized in England since 1SG8, and 

 are always on exhibition in Frank Buckland's museum of fish-culture at South Kensington. The 

 "Domesticated Trout," by Livingston Stone, and "Trout Culture," by Seth Green, are books which 

 give full information concerning the practical details of trout-breeding. 



The Trout can scarcely be considered a market fish; still, about five thousand pounds of 

 them, mostly domesticated, are brought to New York market each year, principally in April and 

 May. 



165. THE SAIBLING, OR BAVARIAN CHAR SALVELINUS ALPINUS. 



Like the Red-spotted Trout of North America, the Saibling belongs to the division of the same 

 family known to the English as "Chars," a group confined, for the most part, to fresh- water lakes 

 iind streams, and distinguished from the. true Salmons by a peculiar arrangement of teeth on the 



