160 THE TROUT. 



triflers on the surface are consumed, the most interest- 

 ing to man are 



THE GENUS SALMO. 



THAT prince of fishes, the salmon, (salmo salar,} from 

 which the genus is named, is an estuary fish rather 

 than a river one ; and though angled for in some rivers 

 at a great distance from the sea, it is never there 

 in its primest perfection It ascends the rivers for a 

 particular purpose, and when it has reached the grounds 

 that are adapted for that, it should be left undisturbed, 

 as the capture is then wanton, a race being destroyed ; 

 and yet the parent, in whose capture they are lost, is 

 not in a condition for being wholesome food. The 

 proper fish for the river angler's sport is 



THE TROUT. 



THERE are a good many ascertained varieties of trout, 

 and there are probably more supposed ones, arising 

 from differences of the water in which they live, or the 

 substances on which they feed. The proper fresh- 

 water trout (salmo fario) is found, in large lakes, of a 

 very great size, weighing as much as sixty or seventy 

 pounds. It is somewhat like the salmon in the sea, 

 however, not often or easily caught ; but when it begins 

 to ascend the rivers, which it does for the purpose of 

 spawning, at an earlier or later period of the summer, 

 according to the situation, it may be taken. Whether 

 the fishes themselves be large or small, the eggs in the 

 roe of the trout are said to be all of the same size, 



