Fishes of Brookhnvefi. L. I. 271 



pound is considered large, most of those taken being less than 

 this ; below the pond, in the stream which runs from it, a 

 trout of less than two pounds is not counted of the average 

 size, while those of three, four, and five pounds are frequently 

 taken. Why is this ? It may be said that in the pond there 

 must be a deficiency of food ; well, if so it should be remem- 

 bered that this is one of the places in which we find the small 

 'pickerel. But I can scarcely believe that want of food causes 

 the difference. It certainly appears to me that the pond af- 

 fords a supply fully as abundant as that to be obtained in the 

 one next above on the same stream, which is the property of 

 James Weeks, Esq. And yet this latter has always been 

 noted for the great size of its trout ; a few years since seven- 

 teen were taken in it in one day which weighed thirty-four 

 pounds. 



Let us take another species, Perca flavescens. M. In the 

 Hockanum River, which enters the Connecticut a little below 

 Hartford, _per67i are very abundant, but so far as I am aware 

 one weighing more than a pound has never been taken there ; 

 and yet probably no stream affords the food of the perch in 

 greater profusion. In other apparently less favored places, 

 however, perch are often found of two or three pounds. 



Again, on the north shore of Brookhaven, Long Island, a 

 black-Jish {Tautoga americana, Bloch) of two pounds is es- 

 teemed large, while beyond the weight of five pounds they are 

 entirely unknown ; yet in the Vineyard Sound they are taken 

 of fourteen or fifteen pounds. 



It appears, therefore, that a difference in size alone is not 

 sufficient for a distinguishing specific character, even though 

 we may be unable to account for the difference. 



Before leaving this species I cannot forbear making the fol- 

 lowing mention of a specimen which, though it had no con- 

 nection with Long Island, is yet worthy of being recorded on 

 account of its great size. 



Feb. 28, 1842, I examined a pickerel which had been 

 caught in a net in the Hockanum River, about two miles east 

 of Hartford, Conn.; it was an undoubted reticulatus of Le 



