THE SALMON FAMILY. 8 1 



free from the shaft. This crest is armed with 

 strong teeth. There are also large hooked teeth 

 on the hyoid bone, and the teeth generally are 

 proportionately stronger than in most of the other 

 species. The great lake-trout is grayish in color, 

 light or dark according to its surroundings; and 

 the body is covered with round paler spots, which 

 are gray instead of red. The dorsal and caudal 

 fins are marked with darker reticulations, some- 

 what as in the brook-trout. The great lake-trout 

 is found in all the larger lakes from New England 

 and New York to Wisconsin, Montana, and Alaska. 

 It reaches a much larger size than any other Sal- 

 velinus, specimens of from fifteen to twenty pounds' 

 weight being not uncommon, while it occasionally 

 attains a weight of fifty to eighty pounds. As a 

 food-fish it ranks high, although it may be re- 

 garded as somewhat inferior to the brook-trout or 

 the white-fish. Compared with other salmonoids, 

 the great lake-trout is a sluggish, heavy, and rav- 

 enous fish. It has been known to eat raw potato, 

 liver, and corn-cobs, refuse thrown from passing 

 steamers. According to Herbert, " a coarse, 

 heavy, stiff rod, and a powerful oiled hempen or 

 flaxen line, on a winch, with a heavy sinker; a 

 cod-hook, baited with any kind of flesh, fish, or 

 fowl, is the most successful, if not the most or- 

 thodox or scientific, mode of capturing him. His 

 great size and immense strength alone give him 

 value as a fish of game ; but when hooked, he pulls 

 strongly and fights hard, though he is a boring, 

 deep fighter, and seldom if ever leaps out of the 

 water, like the true salmon or brook-trout." 



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