VI 

 SEA-TROUT FISHING 



WHEN the successful angler surveys a four- or five-pom 

 sea-trout dripping fresh from the tidal waters of 

 Canadian river, as he notes the fine proportions and pure ("l<u 

 of the fish, the graceful form of the round broad back cm 

 to the small well-shaped head, the flashing lights thrown back fr 

 the brilliant silvery- sides, the opal tints of the lower parts of tl 

 Ixxly. and the delicate carmine of the stiffening fins, he finds 

 diftVult to Ix'lieve that the sea-trout is not entitled to a name 

 its own, for all the protestations of the naturalists that it is nothii 

 more or less than the ordinary river trout, otherwise Sal. 

 fonttnuiis, which has ' suffered a sea change into something 

 and strange,' by a habit that has gradually been acquired of runnii 

 to the ocean, where the bountiful diet of the sea has brought .il 

 a remarkable development in size and beauty. Anatomic all 

 considered there can be no structural difference whatsoever dis- 

 covered between the two, sharply contrasted as they ;n 

 outward ap|x-arance. 



The naturalist has also settled it that there is no sped lie ditl< i- 

 ence between the gamy ouananichc (pronounced wonanecsh 

 in apjx'arance very similar to the well-known Loch Leven ti>ut). 

 which haunts the inland Canadian waters, and the Atk'.nti> s.ilmon. 

 The opinion was for a long time held that this interesting li>h \\.-.s 

 a ' land-locked ' salmon, by some means having formerly 1>- 

 imprisoned by natural barriers in remote upper waters, and del 

 for a long period of time from access to the sea. Further in\< 

 tion, however, has shown that the ouananiche cannot possibly 

 be considered a land-locked salmon, for wherever found it .an 

 run to sea if it has the desire. Hence we are brought f;; 

 with the remarkable conclusion that two varieties of tl tinny 

 tribe by which the vast network of Canadian lakes and her tluuisaiuU 

 of clear rapid rivers are tenanted have this marked prculiai 

 common, that a certain proportion of individuals have developed 

 the habit of ninning to the ocean, while others of less enter] >n><- 



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