SEA TROUT. 45 



this along the shores and bays. Their eggs must be 

 deposited on a gravelly bed and not on sand, and as the 

 bottom of the salt water, which is purely sand, even if 

 appropriate spawning ground, is peopled with all sorts, 

 shapes and sizes of creeping, crawling and burrowing 

 things, from sand-worms to sea-eggs, the spawn would 

 be utterly destroyed long before it could come to ma- 

 turity. If, in spite of all these difficulties, the eggs 

 should hatch, the young fry being entirely helpless for 

 thirty days, and little able to take care of themselves 

 afterward, would be annihilated by their elder brethren 

 or the first sea fish that came along. Young trout, in 

 their appropriate localities, hide carefully in little spring 

 rills and close along shore for months after they are 

 hatched, and not till well grown and active do they 

 trust themselves in the deeper places among the larger 

 fish. Nature has taught them that the latter have an 

 excessive fondness for them. 



Whether sea trout spawn earlier than brook trout, I 

 do not know, but very possibly they may, as in cooler 

 countries fish usually spawn earlier than in warmer ones. 

 However, in August the roe is not developed to any 

 great extent ; no more so, apparently, than with us, and, 

 although the Canadian Winter sets in earlier than ours, 

 trout do not fear the cold. The regions they inhabit 

 being extremely difficult of access in the freezing season, 

 this question may remain some time unsolved. 



Whether sea trout should be ranked as a distinct 

 species, or whether there are any different species of 

 trout in America, has been a serious question. It is a 

 great misfortune that every naturalist, in his eager 



