38 FAMILIAR FISH, THEIR HABITS AND CAPTURE 



salmon family, which now seems to be settled. There 

 is no doubt that the sea trout and the brook trout are 

 one and the same fish. It is broadly claimed that 

 any of the trout can live as well in salt water as they 

 can in fresh, and everything seems to prove the 

 claim to be correct. All trout grow to a larger size 

 in salt water than in the brooks or rivers, and they 

 lose their spots in the sea, becoming pale and silvery 

 in color. 



Brook trout originally were found at a distance 

 not greater than three hundred miles back from the 

 ocean in waters tributary to it. Where conditions of 

 temperature were favorable, they invariably sought 

 salt water. When transplanted to, or found in, in- 

 land waters, they have adapted themselves to fresh- 

 water conditions as well. 



All members of the trout family require cold 

 water for their habitat, averaging about 68 or less. 

 Therefore they must either seek the cold water of 

 the ocean or, if barred from that by long stretches of 

 warm-river waters, they must seek the cold, small 

 tributaries high up in the hills. While trout are 

 found in the highland streams south of New York as 

 far as South Carolina, they are not able to seek the 

 sea on account of the warm, intervening waters. In 

 Long Island streams all trout are seagoing. From 

 that point along the coast northward sea trout are 



