SALMONID^ 



25 



ARDOMINAL 

 MALACOPTEllYGII. SALMONID.'i;. 



THE SALMON TROUT. 



SEA TROUT WHITE TROUT. 



Sabiw Trutta; Yarrel. 



When speaking of this beautiful fish— which, by the aid of my friend 

 Ml-. Perley, of the city of St. John, I have been enabled fully to estab- 

 lish for the first time as an unquestionable inhabitant of our waters — 

 1 mentioned, on page 277, the singular fact that this fish, although it 

 enters every river and estuary on the eastern side of Nova Scotia, and 

 runs up so far as the meeting of the tidal and fresh waters, does not 

 run up into the shoals, or spawn in the gravel beds of any of those 

 rivers. 



While commenting on that fact, I stated that it would appear to 

 indicate a variation in this species from one of the normal habits of the 

 race — that of running up into aerated waters, in order to spawn. 



This, it now seems, was founded on an erroneous interpretation of 

 the fact, which is, that the Salmon Trout, which does run up into 

 fresh shallow streams, in order to spawn, on the Eastern Continent, 

 does not breed with us at all on the Atlantic coasts of America, though 

 it will probably be found to do so in the waters which ftill into the Pa- 

 cific, as the Columbia, Sacramento, and other rivers in which, as I 

 learn from returned Californians, it literally swarms 



The Salmon Trout in our north-eastern waters is merely a transient 

 and very rapacious visitor, pursuing the vast shoals of smelts which 

 run into all those rivers, and hunting them with unwearied activity 

 and ferocity, until they escape above his reach into the swift and 

 shallow fresh waters, into which he does not seem to pursue them 

 After their escape, he returns at once into the outer bays and larger 

 estuaries, where he is taken, as I have before described, with the scar- 

 let ibis fly. 



The pursuit of the smelt by this fish indicates the propriety of spin- 



