200 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



comes dark from inhabiting water discolored by vegetable 

 infusion. 



Frank Forester's strictures on this disposition to claim a 

 difference of species, on account of local or accidental causes 

 producing a difference in size, condition, or color, are entirely 

 appropriate, and he had good reasons for saying that the 

 " Sea Trout" claimed by Mr. Smith of Massachusetts as a 

 new species, was none other than a well-fed Brook Trout 

 that had access to salt water, where its greater variety and 

 abundance of food produced a brighter hue and deeper- 

 colored flesh. 



Mr. Brown, after quoting Mr. Smith's observations on the 

 fish just referred to, says : " The last-mentioned species, Le- 

 pomis salmonea, is common in our Southern rivers, and with 

 many Southerners goes under the name of Trout Bass, or 

 Brown Bass." Mr. Brown here takes an error of Mr. Smith 

 as a basis, and piles an error of his own, or that of his 

 informer, on top of it, making " confusion worse confounded." 

 Let me assure the reader that the so-called " Southern Trout" 

 is not a Trout, nor has it the least generic affinity to it ; it is 

 a fresh-water Bass, Qrystes salmoides, and belongs to the 

 Perch family ; and let me further say that there are no Trout, 

 or any species of the Salmon family, found south of Virginia. 



Food of Trout. — Flies, beetles, bugs, caterpillars, grass- 

 hoppers, in fact all manner of insects that are so unlucky as 

 to touch the surface of the water, are arrested by the vigilant 

 Trout ; and little stonefish, minnows, and shiners are chased 

 and devoured by them at night, in shoal water. I once 

 opened a Trout of eleven inches, which appeared rather stout, 

 and took from its pouch eight small shiners, which equalled 

 nearly a fourth of its own weight. At another time, in a 

 dark, still water, I took a Trout of twelve inches, which had 

 nearly swallowed a water-lizard of six inches, the head of the 



