44 THE PROVENCHER SOCIETY 



as Marston's, or supposed to be its very close congener, was des- 

 cribed forty years ago by Professor Hind, who found it in the 

 head-waters of one of the higher tributaries of the Mcisie, in the 

 interior of Labrador". 



The Great Lake Trout 



Cristivomer namaycush or Salveliniis namaycush, the great lake 

 trout, known to some people as grey trout and to others as touladi 

 or queue fourchee, grows to an enormous size in Canadian waters. 

 Specimens have been taken from Lake Superior weighing nearly 

 eighty pounds, and from Lake Metis in Matane county and Lake 

 St. Joseph, in Portneuf county, weighing over thirty poiinds. It 

 grows to an enormous size in Lake St. John, as well as in Tscho- 

 tagama, Lac-asJim, Mistassini, and, in fact, in nearly all the lakes 

 of the Labrador peninsula. It is almost invariably captured in 

 deep, cool water, and, in fact, can survive in no other in the hot 

 summer months. Of all the species of Salvelinus it requires a 

 habitat of lowest temperature. It is usually taken by deep water 

 trolling with a live or phantom minnow or spoon, though in the far 

 north it is taken by Indians for food on night lines. A few cases 

 are en record where the namaycush has taken the fly, but this 

 only occurs during the first few days after the break-up of the ice, 

 when it is cold enough to enable these fishes to remain near the 

 surface. At that season they sometimes chase shoals of young 

 fish to the surface of the water, the frightened little creatures in 

 their haste to avoid their pursuer, often springing in hundreds out 

 of the water and falling on the surface like a shower of hail. When 

 this phenomenon is observed, an attractive fly carefully dropped 

 a little below the surface will sometimes coax the lake trout; one 

 of sixteen pounds having been thus taken in the early nineties of 

 the last century, in Lake St. Charles, by the late Mr. Lacon Welch 

 of Quebec. In deep trolling a copper wire line is often used and 

 is sometimes heavily weighted with lead sinkers. Ihe Montagnais 

 Indians know this fish as kokomesh. By the Indians of Lake Nepi- 

 goh, where it is plentiful, it is called b}' the name Namaycush 

 which has been selected for it by science. 



Ihe Rainbow Trout 



The Rainbow Trout, Salmo irideus, is so called because of a 

 supposed resemblance of the more or less distinctive longitudinal 

 stripes of merging colors on its sides to the hues of the rainbow. 

 The central and more prominent of these stripes is usually red, 

 but not of so deep a shade as that upon the belly of the spawning 

 brook trout and Marston trout. This is a western or Pacific 

 slope fish which has reached Quebec waters chiefly by way of the 

 United States, where it has been brought east by fish culturists. 

 It is now abundant in some of the preserved waters of Long Island, 

 and from these many millions of eggs have been from time to time 

 procured under the direction of the present writer and hatched 

 and planted in some of the waters of this Province, especially in 

 lakes and streams contiguous to the United States, and in some 



