SALMONID^. 51 



At all events, we should not be tantalized by information so va^uc 

 and indefinite as that conveyed in a note to the appendix, contributed 

 by the members of the Piseco club to Dr. Bethune, for the beautiful 

 and valuable edition of Walton's Angler recently given to the Ameri- 

 can world — with notes on American fishing, the only fault of which 

 is their brevity — by that accomplished fisherman and erudite scholar, 

 who takes no shame to be held a follower of the gentle art, and to 

 possess the finest piscatorial library owned in the United States, 

 whether by private individual or collective body. 



" In June of this year," says the note to which I have reference, 

 " the president of this club killed a red-Jteshed Lake Trout of 24 lbs. 

 weight!" And no more! 



Information of the same kind has been given to me by Mr. C. Web- 

 ber, the author of some pleasant letters on Hamilton County Fishing, 

 published during the past year in the columns of the New York 

 Courier and Enquirer ; but, unfortunately, none of the fortunate takers 

 have noted any points relative to this fish, on which any deliberate 

 opinion can be formed. 



The flesh of the ordinary Lake Trouts of America, Confinis^ Ame- 

 tkystus, and Siskawitz, are all pale, dingy, yellowish buff", tasteless, 

 coarse, muddy, and flaccid. 



It seems to be admitted that the red-fleshed Lake Trout is of more 

 brilliant external coloring than the common variety. 



This is the fish of which I have spoken at page 43, as being un- 

 questionably a distinct species, if not an overgrown and gigantic variety 

 of the Brook Trout, Salmo Fontinalis. This latter, I believe to be 

 the case ; though it is impossible to pronounce positively, without 

 seeing the fish, and instituting careful compavL^on. 



The fishermen of that district, on the lake, assert, I xmderstand, 

 positively that this is not the case ; but of course their opinion is utterly 

 valueless, being founded on some such admirable reason as that the 

 Brook Trout never grows to be above five or six pounds ; meaning 

 only that they have never seen what they take to be one over that 

 average. Just in the same manner, a person used to take fisli only in 

 the small mountain brooks of Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont, 

 might tell you quite as plausibly, quite as positively, and quite as 

 truthfully — so far as his miserable experience of truth goes — that the 



