344 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



inches long. The gluttony of this species is proverbial. It will devour table refuse, 

 and materials of this kind have frequently been taken from its stomach. Even 

 twigs, leaves and pieces of wood have been taken by this Trout. The species is 

 much more sluggish in its habits than the Brook Trout, and is taken on or near the 

 bottom. The gill and pound nets in which this species is principally captured are 

 set in deep water. 



The spawning of the Lake Trout usually begins in October and continues into 

 November. For this purpose they come up on rocky shoals and reefs in depths of 

 from 70 to 90 feet, and spawn near the edges of rock caverns, into which the eggs 

 settle. The young are hatched late in the winter or early in spring. In some locali- 

 ties the depth of the spawning areas ranges from 15 fathoms to only 7 feet. Mr. 

 Milner found 14,943 eggs in a Lake Trout weighing 24 pounds. In the hatchery, 

 with a water temperature of 47, the young hatch about the last week of January, 

 but their hatching may be retarded several weeks by lower temperatures. 



The fishery for the Lake Trout is most active in September, October and Novem- 

 ber, and the fish are taken chiefly in pound and gill nets. In some regions many of 

 them also are caught with hooks. In Lake Erie a few large trout of this species, 

 weighing from 25 to 40 pounds, are taken off the city of Erie. In 1885, according to 

 the statistics of the U. S. Fish Commission, 100,000 pounds of Lake Trout were 

 taken in Erie County, Pa. 



Hon. H. W. Sage is authority for the information that the Lake Trout was form- 

 erly common in the lake near Ithaca. About 1830 a large individual was found 

 stranded in Cayuga Lake Inlet, about i*/ miles from the lake. 



68. Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis Mitchill). 



Salmo fontinalis MITCHILL, Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y., I, 435, 1815, near New- 

 York; RICHARDSON, Fauna Bor.-Amer., Ill, 176, pi. 83, fig. i, 1836; DEKAY, N. Y. 

 Fauna, Fishes, 235, pi. 38, fig. 120, 1842. 



Salmo erythrogaster DEKAY, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 236, pi. 39, fig. 136, 1842. 



Baione fontinalis DEKAY, op. cit. 244, pi. 20, fig. 58, 1842. 



Salvelinus fontinalis GOODE, Fish. & Fish. Ind. U. S., I, 497, pi. 192, 1884; BEAN, 

 Fishes Penna., 80, color pi. 7, 1893; Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., IX, 350, 1897; 

 BOWERS, Manual Fish Cult., ed. 2, color pi. frontispiece, 1900; JORDAN & EVER- 

 MANN, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus., 506, pi. LXXXII, fig. 218, 1900. 



The Brook Trout varies greatly in the shape of the body, which is sometimes 

 short and deep and again elongate and moderately thin. The depth is usually 

 about one-fourth or two-ninths of total length without caudal, and about equal to 



