BROOK-TROUT. 387 



long, it has been suggested that this species may sometimes 

 attain the weight of fifty pounds. The other species, the 

 northern pickerel (Esox lucioides) sometimes attains the 

 weight of seventeen pounds. The reticulatus being re- 

 stricted to six or seven pounds, the range of the larger 

 species must be more extensive than that assigned to it by 

 some writers for the following reason : in the dams or slack- 

 water pools of the Conemaugh River on the western side, 

 and within the Appalachian range, a pike is often taken 

 weighing thirty pounds, and very frequently twenty and 

 twenty-eight pounds. The head is enormous, and the fish 

 is considered the greatest delicacy, and not like the common 

 pickerel, "coarse, watery, and of small value for the table." 

 Is this the great St. Lawrence Basin Muskellange Esox 

 estor or another Esox ? 



Family SALMONID^. 



SALMO fontinalis, (Mitch.) Brook-trout. Range, all 

 clear running streams in the Northern and Middle States. 

 Length, said to be eight inches, but often much larger.* Far 

 up in the mountain rivulets, even to the spring as it escapes 

 through the fissures of the rock, this species climbs. 

 Wherever fresh water, especially cold spring-water, is found 

 in sufficient quantity to immerse their bodies, they abound 

 in hole and eddy, in pool and rapid, and it is wonderful 

 how they thread their way up the mountain side through 

 the swift-rushing streams, over falls boiling through rocks, 

 roots, and drifts. Where the smallest rill or little spring re- 

 mains permanently fresh throughout the year, this species, in 

 some shape of growth, is found in proportion to the quantity 

 of the water, either as smallest troutlet or adult fish. The 

 latter, or full-grown trout, is generally found in the larger 

 waters some distance from the mountains, while the young 

 fry in quantities find their way up to the springs, and live and 



* "A trout, measuring fifteen inches in length, and weighing two 

 pounds two ounces, was caught in Piney Creek, near the base of the 

 Alleghany, July, 1859." M. 



