284 The Trout s of America 



despite of the strong natural instinct of the fish 

 to migrate to " bitter water," as the Germans call 

 it. In New England, Canada, and also along the 

 south shore of Long Island, one of these charrs 

 {fontinalis) goes down to the estuaries and feeds, 

 grows lusty, getting flesh of deeper salmon color 

 and a more robust form, and remains in his new 

 habitat until the instinct of spawning impels him 

 to migrate in the following spring inward and 

 upward. Other fresh-water fish find a congenial 

 habitat in salt water. This habit is strikingly 

 shown in the so-called pike of Chesapeake Bay, 

 which is the Eastern pond pickerel {Lucius 

 reticulatus) of the fresh waters east of the Alle- 

 ghanies. In some of the bays and estuaries of 

 the New Jersey coast this pickerel exhibits the 

 same inclination for a salt-water life. The black 

 basses also find the brackish waters congenial ; 

 and this peculiarity is not confined to the large- 

 mouthed black bass of Florida, in the waters of 

 which state many of the fishes of the rivers and 

 numbers of those which habitually live in salt 

 water, interchange temporary habitats. 



The most prominent external marking by 

 which the salmon-trouts and charrs may be dis- 

 tinguished apart, is the presence of red or crim- 



