312 FISHES OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



of 10 pounds is not infrequently attained. One of the largest examples of the 

 spotted squeteague ever caught and possibly the largest ever recorded was 

 taken in Neuse River in the winter of 1903-4 and exhibited in New Bern by 

 Mr. George N. Ives, who reports that the fish weighed 16.5 pounds. 



The local names applied to the species are indefensible, but will probably 

 never be supplanted by appropriate ones. Besides "trout" and "sea trout", 

 which are shared by its congener, the northern squeteague, it is known as the 

 "speckled trout", "salmon trout", and "salmon". Mr. W. H. Yopp reports 

 the name "black trout" as in use among the Wilmington fishermen, by whom 

 the other species is called "summer trout". Spotted weak-fish and spotted 

 squeteague are the best names, and their use should be encouraged. 



The fish is very abundant in North Carolina, and it is the principal member of 

 the drum family in that state from the economic standpoint. Yarrow's notes 

 on the fish as observed at Beaufort in 1871-2 are interesting because of the 

 changes that have occurred; he wrote: 



Very abundant from February to June, April being considered the best month; are taken 

 at this time in nets only as they will not take the hook until September, upon their return from 

 the northward. The roe in female specimens was found to be quite large in April. Size from 

 6 to 36 inches; one specimen, taken in September, 1871, with hook, measured 24 inches in length 

 and weighed 3f pounds. In 1872 the species first apj^eared January 9, which was considered 

 unusually early. 



The susceptibility of the squeteagues to cold, as was illustrated in the case 

 of the preceding species, is shown also for the spotted squeteague in the following 

 account of N. E. Armstrong, of Onslow County: 



When we have extremely cold and cloudy weather, and I believe also windy weather for 

 three or four days, the trout at the mouth of New River are benimibed, and on the first sunny 

 day, rise to the surface, and after a day or two die and sink to the bottom or are washed ashore. 

 As soon as they rise, there are generally hundreds of mpn ready with nets, dip nets, gigs, and 

 in some instances nothing but their hands and boats, to pick them up. They are sometimes 

 washed ashore in long heaps, two and three feet deep, for a considerable distance. When 

 these "numbs" occur it is generally known throughout this and adjoining counties, and carts 

 and wagons come for the fish by hundreds, sometimes from a distance of fifty or sixty miles. 

 There was a "numb" in January, 1877, and another in the winter of 1879, about the same 

 time, but they do not occur frequently.* 



It is interesting to observe that in the note on this species in Lawson's 

 work (1709) reference is made to the same phenomenon: 



Trouts of the salt water are exactly shaped like the trouts in Europe, ha\dng blackish, not 

 red spots. They are in the Salts, and are not red within, but white, yet a very good fish. They 

 are so tender that if they are in or near fresh water, and a sudden frost come, they are benum'd 

 and float on the surface of the water, as if dead; and then they take up canoe-loads of 

 them. If you put them into warm water, they perfectly recover. 



The egg of this species is somewhat smaller than that of the northern 

 squeteague, and hatches in 40 hours in water of 77°F, The spawning grounds 

 are the bays and sounds. 



♦American Fishes. By G. Brown Goode. New York, 1888. P. 119. 



