THE BROOK TROUT. 



BY F. H. THURSTON. 



THE Spotted Brook Trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, is one 

 of the most beautiful fishes in existence. It belongs to 

 the division of the Salmon family known to the English 

 as " Chars, "a group confined for the most part to fresh-water 

 brooks and streams, and, according to Professor Goode, 

 distinguished from the true Salmons by a peculiar arrange- 

 ment of teeth on the vomer, and also by their very small 

 scales, and usually by numerous crimson or orange-colored 

 spots, which are especially conspicuous in the breeding sea 

 son. Its home is between latitudes 32* degrees and 55 

 degrees, in the lakes and streams of the Atlantic water-shed, 

 near the sources of a few rivers flowing into the Mississippi 

 and the Gulf of Mexico, and in some of the southern affluents 

 of Hudson Bay. Its range is limited by the southern foot- 

 hills of the Alleghanies, and nowhere extends more than three 

 hundred miles from the coast, except about the Great Lakes, 

 in the northern tributaries of which Trout abound. At 

 the south it inhabits the head-waters of the Chattahoochee, in 

 the southern spurs of the Georgia Alleghanies, and tributaries 

 of the Catawba in North Carolina. It also occurs in the 

 Great Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Anticosti, Prince 

 Edward, Cape Breton and Newfoundland. 



The shape, size and coloration of the Speckled Trout vary 

 much according to the conditions of food and water under 

 which it exists. There are waters in which it is so nearly black 

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