116 A REMARKABLE BLUE-BOOK 



has been added, delineating with admirable fidelity 

 the principal fresh- water fish and the deer and other 

 terrestrial animals of the State. Nothing perhaps is 

 so seldom rendered satisfactorily in colour printing as 

 trout of various kinds. Either the lustre is sacrificed 

 to the brilliant colour, giving a harsh and exaggerated 

 effect to the exquisite hues of nature, or the colour is 

 made too uniform and its delicate gradations lost. But 

 in these plates it would really be easy to believe that one 

 was beholding the original drawings of Mr. Denton. 

 They are absolutely faithful portraits both in drawing 

 and colour. It would be very hard to equal the litho- 

 graph of the smelt ; hardly possible to excel the skill 

 with which the pearly tones on gill-covers and scales 

 have been rendered. No publication occurs to mind 

 containing figures of fish so nearly approaching perfec- 

 tion as these. 



There are some very interesting subjects in zoology 

 raised here and there throughout the book, curiously 

 sandwiched with extract from fishery and game laws. 

 The ouananiche, which is now authoritatively pro- 

 nounced to be specifically identified with our Atlantic 

 salmon (8. salar), is popularly known as the 'land- 

 locked ' salmon, on the supposition that some geological 

 convulsion has created a barrier which prevents its 

 descent to the sea. But the fact is, as the Commis- 

 sioners point out, that no such barrier could prevent 

 descent to the sea, however effectually it might bar 

 ascent from it. These salmon, in Maine, Labrador, 

 and Sweden, do not go to the sea simply because they 



