220 EEPORT OP" COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The color and brilliaucy of the water has, also, a very material effect 

 upon the color and ai»pearauce of Snlmo fontinalis. Professor Agassiz 

 has made some very curious experiments with respect to the colors of 

 fishes, especially the Salmonidw ; and he has ascertained beyond a doubt 

 not only that trout of different neighboring waters are affected by the 

 color and quality of the water, but that trout of the same river vary in 

 color, accordingly as they haunt the shady or sunny side of the stream. 



The fish of streams rushing rapidly over i)ebbly beds are suijerior, 

 both in appearance and quality, to those of j)onds, or semi-stagnant 

 brooks. But this may arise, not so much from any particular compo- 

 nents of the waters themselves, as from the fact that rapidly running 

 and falling v\ater is more highly aerated, the atmosphere being more 

 freely intermingled with it, and therefore more conducive to the health 

 and condition of all that inhabit it. 



There is no sportsman actuated by the true animus of the pursuit, 

 who would not prefer basketing a few brace of good trout, to taking a 

 cart-load of the coarser and less game denizens of the water. His wa- 

 riness, his timidity, his extreme cunning, the impossibility of taking him 

 in clear and much-fished waters, except Avith the slenderest and most 

 delicate tackle ; his boldness and vigor after being hooked, and his 

 excellence on the table, place him, without dispute, next to the salmon 

 alone, as the first of fresh-water fishes. The pursuit of him leads into 

 the loveliest scenery of the laud ; and the season at which he is fished 

 for is the most delightful portion of the year. 



The brook-trout rarely exceeds three pounds in weight, and no well- 

 authenticated case is on record of one of the species having reached 

 the weight of six pounds, in these lower provinces. 



2. — THE GREAT GRAY-TROUT OR TOGUE, {Salmo tOTtia.) 



This fish is found in all the large lakes of ISTew Brunswick, and in very 

 many of those in Maine, but it is believed not to exist in the lakes of 

 Nova Scotia. It is called by the lumbermen the togue ; the Indians 

 designate it by a name equivalent to " fresh-water cod." It is found in 

 great numbers and of large size in the Eagle Lakes, at the head of 

 Fish River ; in the St. Francis Lakes, from which flows the river of 

 that name; and in the Matapediac Lake, which discharges itself into 

 the Eestigouche, and in the Mirimichi Lake, at the head of that river. 

 In Lake Temiscouata, this fish has been taken of the weight of 21 

 pounds. It is there called the tuladi. It is often taken of the weight 

 of 12 pounds, and upward, in the Cheputnecticook Lakes, at the head 

 of the eastern branch of the Saint Croix. One sporting friend informs 

 the writer that he caught two of these fish on the Saint Croix Grand 

 Lake, one of which weighed 8 pounds, and the other 13 pounds, but 

 that he saw one taken by a night-line which weighed 25 i)ounds. 

 Another sporting friend, a resident of New York, informs the writer 

 that he has visited the lakes on the western branch of the Saint Croix, 



