GILPIN — -ON THE TROUT AND SALMON. 83 



Still water is his faA-oiite resort, where poised on ever fanning fin he 

 awaits his food. Whoever has had the privilege of lying at full 

 length on a mossy bank and watching him in his lair — an old root 

 or a tiny cave washed from the overhanging clay banks of the swift 

 running waters, will agree with Agassiz* — "that a true figure of 

 him has yet to be done." Head elevated at a slight angle, his capa- 

 cious gills opening and closing, round mouth half open, and great 

 round head and speckled and spotted back, overhung by the spotted 

 dorsal hanging athwart, and throwing wavy circles off from every 

 point, his gaudy scarlet tail and lower fins all tremulous, there he 

 awaits his prey, be it an idle fly touching the surface, a larva coming 

 .down stream, or a venturous young perch. No spotted pard makes 

 a fiercer rush than this marine tiger, on his quarry. The jierch, if 

 he is an ender (coming towards him), disappears at once, or the fly 

 is snapped with an unerring precision. The true figure which yet 

 has to be drawn must make hitn with a luminous brown eye, round 

 in head and back, the dorsal hanging loose across his back and half 

 elevated and floating watery circles from every point. The pectoral 

 and ventral extended in parallel lines at nearly a right angle from 

 the body and ever fiuming — a double pair of propellers, the anal 

 trembling through all its line, and the huge tail vibrating, every ray 

 loose and every membrane floating. The ordinary plates make everv 

 fin stretched and rigid, and the pectoral always thrown back upon 

 the side. In October aild November he leaves the deep waters for 

 the spawning shallows. In winter he is taken by bait through the 

 ice. Of his muscular power in runningup rapids. Dr. Fisk, of St. 

 John, N. B., an accomplished sportsman, informed me that once 

 fishing the upper Avaters of the Miramichi he saw trout repeatedly 

 rush up a perpendicular fall of water about six feet, then pause, 

 tremble violently all over, and in a moment throw themselves clear 

 of the stream and fall into the basin above, about four more feet. 

 Many assert this is done by bringing head and tail together, but in the 

 simple terms of an eye witness, a " trembling " was all he could per- 

 ceive, which no doubt was all that was to be observed. 



Six pounds is the largest weight of any trout taken in this 

 Province to my knowledge, two and three pound fish always attract 

 attention. I have never seen one myself four pounds. The colour 

 *Fishes of Lake Superior, 1850 



