70 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



such force as to preserve its identity for some distance. 

 "Whenever I cast within the radius of this distinctively 

 marked brook water I would take clearly marked brook 

 trout ranging from a quarter to half a pound, but if I cast 

 beyond this line so much as a half dozen yards T would 

 have no brook trout response. When the clearly denned 

 river water line was reached, the dainty fish seemed to halt 

 as surely as if they had run their heads against a stone wall. 

 But, by extending my cast beyond the outflow of tlie brook, 

 I would receive prompt responses from what I believed to 

 be sea trout. On placing them side by side the difference 

 in their appearance seemed to me to be something more than 

 the difference caused by the difference of the water in the 

 two streams. But both are beautiful fish, but, in such a 

 side by side comparison, the sea trout is discovered to lack 

 the rich lustre and golden beauty of his more dainty 

 cousin." 



"Just," I added, "as you will find the tiny fry ) ou see in 

 the little spring rivulets which empty into a trout lake to be 

 more beautiful in form and color than the larger fish you 

 find in the larger waters." 



"It was long a question," my friend rejoined, "whether 

 pickerel and muscalonge were not identical. Now we know 

 that they are different fish, and yet they resemble each other 

 quite as closely as sea and brook trout. Among all the 

 trout I have taken in salmon waters I never saw one that 

 bore an exact resemblance to the trout I have taken in real 

 trout brook waters, or that leaped from the water to the fly 

 with the same vim which distinguishes the large brook trout 

 in our own northern lakes and rivers. I have no wish to be 

 dogmatical upon this subject, but I shall hold to my opinion 

 all the same." 



"I do not care to argue the question with you," was my 

 reply, "but I am not convinced. I agree with you in this, 

 however, that, except salmon, I know of no fish that affords 

 better sport to the appreciative angler than sea trout rang- 

 ing from three to eight pounds in weight." 



