FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 139 



Examination of the teeth is the most positive means of distinguishing trout (in 

 European terminology this is a "charr") from salmon smolt, for the vomerine teeth 

 of the trout are confined to a cluster near the front of the roof of the mouth instead 

 of extending backward in a row along its midline as they do in the salmon. Further- 

 more, the scales of the trout are so tiny as hardly to be visible while those of the 

 salmon are easily seen. 



Color. — Trout living in salt water are colored very differently from their fresh- 

 water brothers, for they almost wholly lack the yellow and red tints so conspicuous 

 on the latter but are invariably silvery. Sea-run fish are steel blue or bottle green 

 on the back, with cheeks and sides silvery like a salmon and with a white belly. The 

 sides above the lateral line are more or less dotted with pale yellow spots, but the 

 dark vermiculate markings so characteristic of the fresh-water brook trout are 

 hardly to be seen on the trunk, though evident as wavy crossbars on the dorsal and 

 on the corners of the caudal fins. Below the level of the lateral line the sides and 

 flanks are strewn with small pale vermilion dots but the ventral fins are plain white, 

 or at most the pink edging so conspicuous in trout caught in fresh water is faint. 



General range. — Eastern North America, north to Labrador, west to Minnesota, 

 and southward along the Allegheny Mountains to Georgia. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Trout are plentiful in many of the river 

 systems and smaller streams that empty into the Gulf of Maine. In some of these 

 some of the trout 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 

 fishing. These, however, lie outside our present province and at present 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. Sea trout seem to be unknown between 

 Cape Cod and Cape Elizabeth, unless possibly in one or two streams tributary to 

 Ipswich Bay. Without a local knowledge more intimate than we boast we can not 

 say how generally sea trout may now exist in the streams in eastern Maine, but 

 according to Evermann (1905a, p. 105) trout inhabit the tidal portions of many of the 

 brooks that empty into Casco Bay. 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 in 

 the past many streams formerly held sea trout but have long since been fished out. 



Anatomically and specifically the "sea trout" is indistinguishable from the 

 ordinary brook trout; 54 they are simply fish that have the habit of running down 

 to salt water, and even in streams free of access to the sea, cold enough throughout 

 their lengths, and harboring these "salters" (as they are called on Cape Cod), 

 most of the trout never leave fresh water. All who have given special attention 

 to our sea trout are agreed on this. It is still an open question whether the habit 

 is hereditary or whether it is acquired independently by each individual fish. 

 Personally, we incline to the first view, chiefly because sea trout are slow in reestab- 

 lishing themselves in any stream once they are brought to a low ebb by hard fishing. 



s * There is another species of sea trout in northern Canadian waters, very plentiful along the coast of northern Labrador. 



