650 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



*' While commenting on that fact, I stated that it would appear to indi- 

 cate a variation in this species from one of the normal habits of the race — 

 that of running up into aerated waters, in order to spawn. 



" This, it now seems, was founded on an erroneous interpretation of the 

 fact, which is, that the Salmon Trout, which does run up into fresh shal- 

 low streams, in order to spawn, on the Eastern Continent, does not breed 

 with us at all on the Atlantic coasts of America, though it will probably 

 be found to do so in the waters which fall into the Pacific, as the Columbia, 

 Sacramento, and other rivers in which, as I learn from returned Califor- 

 nians, it literally swarms. 



" The Salmon Trout in our north-eastern waters is merely a transient and 

 very rapacious visitor, pursuing the vast shoals of smelts which run into 

 ail those rivers, and hunting them with unwearied activity and ferocity, 

 until they escape above his reach into the swift and shallow fresh waters, 

 into which he does not seem to pursue them. After their escape, he 

 returns at once into the outer bays and larger estuaries, where he is taken, 

 as I have before described, with the scarlet ibis fly." 



From the above it will be observed that he has still insisted on its 

 being identical with Salmo trutta of Europe ; that it never enters the 

 rivers of Canada or New Brunswick above tide, and never spawns 

 in those waters at all. What reasonable basis either Mr. Perley 

 or "Frank Forester" could have formed for so strange an 

 hypothesis it is hard to imagine. Any person accustomed to note 

 specific differences, or at all acquainted with the habits of this fish, 

 should have known better. In opposition to this hypothesis, for it is 

 nothing more, I would say, that since putting the first edition of this 

 book in type, I have again visited the Nipissiguit, and found these 

 fish in large schools at the mouths of little brooks far above tide. 

 At the entrance of Gilmore's Brook into the beautiful sheet of water 

 known as the " Basin," a mile and a half below the Grand Falls, 

 they fairly swarmed; so closely were they packed that a thousand or 

 more lay in a space that I could have covered with my blanket, and 

 without a doubt remained there until the spawning season. In mere 

 wantonness of sport, my friend who was with me, cast his flies over 

 them for half an hour, and then gave it up from pure satiety, and 

 lay down and went to sleep. I then took his stand, and in another 



