SEA TROUT. 45 
this along the shores and bays. Their eggs must be 
deposited on a gravelly bed and not on sand, and as the 
bottom of the salt water, which is purely sand, even if 
appropriate spawning ground, is peopled with all sorts, 
shapes and sizes of creeping, crawling and burrowing 
things, from sand-worms to sea-eggs, the spawn would 
be utterly destroyed long before it could come to ma- 
turity. If, in spite of all these difficulties, the eggs 
should hatch, the young fry being entirely helpless for 
thirty days, and little able to take care of themselves 
afterward, would be annihilated by their elder brethren 
or the first sea fish that came along. Young trout, in 
their appropriate localities, hide carefully in little spring 
rills and close along shore for months after they are 
hatched, and not till well grown and active do they 
trust themselves in the deeper places among the larger 
fish. ]S"ature has taught them that the latter have an 
excessive fondness for them. 
Whether sea trout spawn earlier than brook trout, I 
do not know, but very possibly they may, as in cooler 
countries fish usually spawn earlier than in warmer ones. 
However, in August the roe is not developed to any 
great extent ; no more so, apparently, than with us, and, 
although the Canadian Winter sets in earlier than ours, 
trout do not fear the cold. The regions they inhabit 
being extremely difficult of access in the freezing season, 
this question may remain some time unsolved. 
Whether sea trout should be ranked as a distinct 
species, or whether there are any difierent species of 
trout in America, has been a serious question. It is a 
great misfortune that every naturalist, in his eager 
