5 3 o Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



long having a girth of 20 inches; this fish must have weighed close to 13 pounds, as 

 calculated by the accepted formula W = (LG^)/iooo, where ^equals weight in ounces, 

 L the length in inches from eye to base of caudal fin, and G^ the cube of the girth in 

 inches. Dunbar and Hildebrand's report (j6: 95, 96) of "speckled trout" weighing up 

 to ten pounds, taken near Fort Chimo, northern Labrador (Ungava Bay), shows fur- 

 thermore that fontinalis may grow equally large right up to the northernmost limit of 

 their geographic range. 



Sea.-run fofiiina/is in general grow larger than those that remain in fresh water; 

 not very much larger, however, except in situations where the growth rate of the fresh- 

 water fish is low. On the south shore of Cape Cod, for example, where few of the native 

 fish that remain in fresh water are heavier than 0.5—0.75 pound, the largest sea-run 

 fish reported by Smith (in 1833) among many hundreds were one of 2.5 pounds, two 

 that weighed close to 3 pounds each, and three that together weighed 8.25 pounds 

 (60: 353). The largest, taken at the mouth of a privately owned brook tributary to 

 Buzzards Bay, where a continuous record has been kept since 1870, weighed 3.75 

 pounds, and the largest recently taken there was 2.75 pounds (information contributed 

 by C. P. Lyman). Rumors of 5-pound Salters on Cape Cod or on Long Island, New 

 York, seem not to have been supported by concrete evidence. 



The average for the largest ten Salters from the Moser River, Nova Scotia, measured 

 by Wilder (y8: 189, tab. 10, 191), was close to 15 inches (381 mm) and 13.4 ounces 

 (381 g), whereas the average for the largest ten freshwater specimens was only 11. 12 

 inches (282 mm) and 12 ounces (340 g); and one Salter of 18.7 inches (about 476 mm), 

 which must have weighed close to three pounds, has been reported for the Moser River 

 (9: tab. i). The heaviest that has been reported to me for the waters of Nova Scotia 

 was eight pounds.^' On the other hand, no sea-run fish longer than ten inches were 

 seen off" the mouth of a small brook in eastern Maine, where a special study of them 

 was carried out by Charles F. Ritzi,^*' though conditions in the marine environment 

 there would seem to be favorable for growth to a large size. 



Available evidence suggests that the Salters may average somewhat larger along 

 the southern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence than in Nova Scotian waters, for Goode 

 et al. described them as usually weighing "two and one-half pounds," adding that "they 

 are not seldom caught as heavy as six or eight" {26: 499). This accords with Perley's 

 description of catching five-pounders himself on the north shore of Prince Edward 

 Island (57 : 1 32) and with W. P. Templeman's report of Salvelinus weighing up to eight 

 pounds in the Bay of Chaleur (letter). A Brook Trout weighing six pounds was taken in 

 Grand River Codroy, west coast of Newfoundland, by Sir Bryan Leighton in 1904 

 {48: 81), and fish of seven or eight pounds have been reported for West Brook, some 

 1 5 miles north of Bonne Bay, Newfoundland {^o : 24), if these were not Arctic charr 

 (p. 521). However, catches of 33 fish averaging 3.3 pounds off the mouth of Grandys 

 Brook near the Bureo Islands on the coast of southwestern Newfoundland {^8: 68) 



19. Unsigned statement received in reply to an inquiry as to the status of sesi-run fontinalis in Nova Scotian waters. 



20. Information contributed by Charles F. Ritzi. 



