FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



121 



fin and on the corners of the caudal fin. The sides 

 and flanks below the level of the lateral line usually 

 are strewn with small pale vermillion dots, but the 

 ventral fins are often plain white; at most, the 

 pink edging so conspicuous in trout caught in 

 fresh water is faint on fish in salt water. 



General range. — Eastern North America, north 

 to the outer coast of Labrador, west to Minnesota, 

 and southward to Georgia along the Allegheny 

 Mountains. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Brook trout 

 are plentiful in many of the river systems and 

 smaller streams that empty into tbe Gulf of Maine. 

 Some of the trout in some of these seek salt water 

 after the breeding season, to remain there over 

 the winter. This applies particularly to the 

 brooks that flow through the sands of Cape Cod, 

 several of those on its southern slope being famous 

 for their sea-trout fisbing. These, however, lie 

 outside our present province, and only a couple 

 of small streams on the Massachusetts Bay side 

 of the Cape still support a race of trout that run 

 down to the sea regularly. One or two small 

 brooks tributary to Ipswich Bay, and the Merriland 

 River, emptying between Wells and Kennebunk- 

 port, Maine, are the only places between Cape 

 Ann and Cape Elizabeth where we have heard of 

 sea run trout. 



We cannot say how generally sea trout may now 

 exist in the streams of eastern Maine, but accord- 

 ing to Evermann 47 trout once inhabited the tidal 

 portions of many of the brooks that empty into 

 Casco Bay, and they still may. Some of good 

 size are caught also in the Belfast River waters, 

 tributary to upper Penobscot Bay. 48 Huntsman 

 found no definite evidence of trout in salt or 

 brackish water on the New Brunswick side of the 

 Bay of Fundy, but local inquiry has elicited the 

 information that there are fish of this habit in a 

 few streams (notably in Salmon River) on the 

 north and west coasts of Nova Scotia, where 

 many streams formerly held sea run trout that 

 have been fished out long since. 



The "sea trout" are indistinguishable from the 

 ordinary brook trout anatomically. 49 They are 

 simply fish that have the habit of running down 

 to salt water, and most of the trout never leave 



•' Rcp't. U. S. Comm. Fish., (1901) 1905, p. 105. 



" Towne, Striped Bass Survey, Maine Development Comm. and Dept. 

 Sea and Shore Fisheries. 1940. p. 21. 



'• There is another species of sea trout (Salvelinus alpinus) in northern 

 Canadian waters which is very plentiful along the coast of northern Labrador. 



210941—03 9 



fresh water, even in streams offering free access to 

 the sea, cold enough throughout their lengths, 

 and harboring these "salters" (as they are called 

 on Cape Cod). All who have given special atten- 

 tion to our sea trout are agreed on this. It is 

 still an open question whether the habit is hered- 

 itary or whether it is acquired independently by 

 each individual fish. We incline to the first view, 

 chiefly because sea trout are slow in reestablishing 

 themselves in any stream where they have been 

 brought to a low ebb by hard fishing. The trout 

 that follow this habit grow much more rapidly on 

 the abundant rations the salt estuaries provide 

 than do most of their relatives that remain in the 

 brook. Sea fish weigh from 1 to 3 pounds in 

 streams where few of the fresh-water trout exceed 

 half a pound. 



On Cape Cod the sea trout go down to salt 

 water in November immediately after spawning, 

 to winter there. They begin to run again in 

 April, and all of them are in brackish or fresh 

 water by mid-May. But it is said that they do 

 not appear until later in the Xova Scotia streams 

 tributary to the Bay of Fund}- (we cannot vouch 

 for this). 



While in salt water (at least along Cape Cod) 

 the trout feed chiefly on shrimps or on gammarid 

 Crustacea, on mummichogs (Fundulus), and on 

 other small fish. Trout never stray far from the 

 stream mouths; hence they have no place M in 

 the fish fauna of the open Gulf. 



Salmon Salmo salar Linnaeus 1758 



Atlantic salmon; Sea salmon; Silver salmon; 

 Black salmon; Parr; Smolt; Grilse; Kelt 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 486. 



I)i tcription. — The Atlantic salmon is a graceful 

 fish, about one-fourth as deep as long, deepest 

 below the dorsal fin, whence it tapers toward both 

 head and tail; and oval in cross section. Its 

 head is small (about one-fifth, or less of the fish's 

 length, not counting the caudal fin), its nose is 

 blunt, eye rather small, and its mouth gapes back 

 to below the eye. The dorsal fin (about 11 rays) 

 stands about midway between tip of snout 

 and base of tail fin; the vcntrals are under the rear 

 end of the dorsal. The anal is similar in form to 

 the dorsal but has only about 9 rays (7 to 10 have 



» Trout arc taken about Woods nolc, occasionally, in winter. 



