248 OTHER FISH AND GAME 



really good fish always do with the weights-and-measures depart- 

 ment of even the best- balanced mind of the enthusiastic angler. The 

 heaviest one of the lot weighed within a trifle of eight pounds. But 

 everything looked large up here in carnival week, and at times even 

 the inhabitants felt big over the success of the carnival and the gen- 

 eral good time. Sorry you were not here, and sorry that I did not 

 meet your friend, though naturally pleased that I should have been the 

 means, through sending you the carnival programme, of bringing 

 him up here. But to return to our trout. They were caught in 

 January in the waters of the Batiscan that are comprised within the 

 limits of the Triton Fish and Game Club. Of course, they were 

 taken upon lines set through holes in the ice, and by special per- 

 mission of the Crown Lands Department, seeing that fishing through 

 the ice is now prohibited here. I suppose that from three to four 

 dozen were brought to town, weighing from over two to between 

 seven and eight pounds. I saw them all. Part were displayed at 

 the Garrison Club and part at the Chateau Frontenac during car- 

 nival week, and one I dissected at table. To be exact, I have in- 

 quired of Seaton, superintendent of the club, who brought the fish 

 to town, what the heaviest one weighed, and he frankly admits that 

 it was barely eight pounds. But he believes, and so do I, that the 

 ten-pound trout are there where the eight-pounders came from, and 

 the seven-pounders in plenty. And seven or eight of the heavy 

 hooks, such as held the seven and eight pound trout, were broken 

 through by the ' big uns ' that escaped. Shall we go up there together 

 this year and try to find them ? These fish, particularly when frozen, 

 do look, if ever fish did, as if there was something wrong with the 

 scales that weighed them. So symmetrical, and yet so plump and 

 finely conditioned ! And despite their freezing their livery of crim- 

 son and fine gold is wonderfully lustrous, and they must, during 

 life, have fared sumptuously every day. The unfortunate that I 

 subsequently carved looked a six-pound fish. So I guessed before 

 weighing him, but he turned the scale at five. Others had similar 

 experiences, so Mr. H 's was not a solitary one.' " 



That the eight-pound fish above referred to are not 

 the largest that have been taken out of this tract is 

 shown by the following extract from a letter written 

 me in August, 1895, by Dr. Robert M. Lawrence, of 



