226 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



killed them in June, 1897. They could not endure transfer to salt water of a lower 

 temperature, as so many other trout will do, and nothing else could be utilized to tide 

 them over until the completion of the refrigerating plant. 



Owing to the extensive individual and race variation among trout referred to this 

 species, it seems desirable here to give some notes and measurements made from in- 

 dividuals obtained from New Hampshire and Vermont. Two lake trout weighing 

 about four and three-quarter pounds each were shipped in a can, only a few inches 

 longer than the fish, from Roxbury, Vermont, on November 17, and after an express 

 journey of twenty hours without an attendant one of them survives in good condition, 

 while the other was nearly dead upon arrival and died within one hour. The latter 

 was a female, and appears to have injured itself severely by jumping in the can ; it 

 was not in good condition when it left Vermont. Twelve large brook trout shipped 

 with the lake trout in two cans arrived without injury ; these and the lake trout were 

 presented by Mr. Jolin W. Titcomb, Fish and Game Commissioner. 



Commissioner N. Wentworth, of Hudson Center, N. H., forwarded the New 

 Hampshire lake trout, one from Newfound Lake, the other from Lake Winnepesaukee. 

 They were sent to determine whether the trout of the two lakes, which the fishermen 

 claim are different species, really are distinct. The Commissioner wrote that "The 

 Newfound trout lias darker flesh, more like the sea salmon. This is not caused by 

 their food, as both lakes are alive with smelt. The Winnepesaukee lake trout are 

 better biters ; tons of them are caught through the ice every winter. The Newfound 

 trout are hardly ever caught through the ice. A few were caught last winter for the 

 first time to my knowledge. I am sure there is but one variety of lake trout in New- 

 found Lake. We had one in our tanks this fall that would weigh twenty-five pounds." 

 The only difTerence to be found upon examination were such as relate to the depths 

 at which the two races habitually live; one is the slim, dark-colored tiiladi, and the 

 other the common lake trout of the Great Lakes region. 



It is necessary, however, to call attention to the lake trout from Northern Ver- 

 mont, which furnished one of the series of measurements given below. The sill- 

 rakers in that example are few in number and unusually short, four or five on each 

 side being reduced to mere spiny tubercles. 



