126 SALMONlDiE. 



The Mackinaw Salmon {Salmo Amethystus), which does grow 

 to that prodigious size, and which answers to many of the par- 

 ticulars specified, is never scarlet-spotted, nor does the Salmo 

 Confinis of Dr. Dekay ever show a red spot. 



One or both these fish do exist in the lakes of Maine and 

 New Hampshire, from Temiscouata to Winnepisiogee, and it 

 may be that this is a mis-description of one of these. If it be 

 not, it is either a new and nondescript fish, of the kind men- 

 tioned as killed by the President of the Piseco Club, " with red 

 flesh, weighing twenty-four pounds," or it is a very large speci- 

 men of the Brook Trout, and, moreover, wonderfully exaggerated 

 in dimensions. 



It is a remarkable peculiarity of the American Trout, that it 

 is never found — except when, as a very rare exception, one is 

 taken in drawing the scan — in any large rivers. I have never 

 heard a solitary instance of a fish being taken either with 

 the bait or the fly, or even with the spinning tackle, in any 

 large stream, unless quite at its head-waters, where it is not 

 large. All the Trout which are taken, are taken in what are 

 here called creeks, and what would, in Europe, be described as 

 large brooks, or small rivers of the sixth or seventh class. In 

 these the run of fish greatly exceeds the dimensions of the little 

 inhabitants of the mountain brooks. This, in addition to other 

 facts, at the knowledge of which we have arrived through 

 the experiments recorded heretofore, as made in England, 

 with regard to the growth of fishes, lead us irresistibly to the 

 conclusion that the use of large expanses of suitable water 

 is necessary to the Trout, in order to their arriving at any 

 great magnitude. 



