Salmon- Fishing. 435 



lighting a cigar and strolling back to camp. Sometimes an irasci- 

 ble angler seizes the trout the moment he is off the hook and hurls 

 him vindictively against the cliff. 



This same abused sea-trout, however, when broiled before the 

 tire in an open wire broiler, with a bit of salt pork clamped upon him, 

 or rolled in buttered and wetted papers, and roasted under the 

 embers, is preferable to salmon, and is more often eaten by the 

 Gaspe anglers. The sea-trout and the common brook-trout, Salmo 

 fontinalis, are taken side by side in the same pools ; and so great is 

 the apparent dissimilarity, that it seems impossible that they are one 

 and the same species, the sea-trout merely being changed by his trip 

 to sea, as some naturalists assert. The spots on the brook-trout are 

 much more clearly defined, and have the light color upon their edges, 

 while the markings of the sea-trout seem not to be distinct spots so 

 much as irregular markings akin to those of the mackerel. This is 

 as it appears to us who are not naturalists. 



It is notable that although the three Gaspe rivers flow into the 

 same bay, and for long distances within a few miles of each other, yet 

 the fish are so different as to be readily distinguished one from 

 another by the natives. The fish run up earliest in the York, and 

 those taken even in the lowest pools are of larger size than those of 

 the other streams. Of course, those that are strong enough to get to 

 the upper pools early in the season before the river has run down are 

 extremely large. The last runs of fish in the York are perhaps a 

 trifle smaller than the general average of the St. John, where the 

 early and late runs are of more nearly the same average size. So 

 the fish of the Tay, in Scotland, are a month earlier than those of the 

 Tweed, and presumably in this case because the snow gets out of the 

 former much the sooner. The fish of the St. John are slightly shorter 

 and fuller than those of the York, resembling more nearly the Salmo 

 <juinnat of California. A few seasons since, the St. John was so 

 jammed with the logs of a broken-up lumber raft that the fish were 

 I flocked out of it, and that year its peculiar fish were taken in the 

 York. The next year, die St. John was clear, and its fish went back 

 to it. A few seasons later grilse and young salmon were taken in 

 the York which slightly resembled the St. John fish. The parent 

 fish returned to their own stream. Their offspring, which were 

 hatched in the York, remained in that river. 



