THE BROOK TROUT. 133 
river, they are scarcely found south of the Alleghany 
ridges, nor in the Western States south of the Great 
Lakes, or west of Michigan, until we reach the Pacific 
watershed.* Now, as this district extends over not less 
than thirty-five degrees of longitude from east to west, 
by fifteen of latitude from north to south, it must be 
obvious that no general rules can be adopted which shall 
be applicable to the whole of that vast tract. In the 
British provinces, and Lower Canada, the rivers are not 
clear of thick ice until the end of April or early in 
May ; and in the western country, on Lakes Huron and 
Superior, the season, if any thing, is later. On Long 
Island, in May, trout-fishing is nearly at an end; on the 
Callicoon, the Beaverkill, and the various tributaries of 
the upper Delaware and Susquehanna, it is then begin- 
ning, and is shortly after in its perfection. On the 
superb lakes and streams of Hamilton county, New 
York, and of the North Eastern States, June is the 
month par excellence ; and probably, for those who can 
endure the pest of the black fly and black midge, there 
is no such fishing in the world, for extent of water, quan- 
tity, and size of fish, and loveliness of scenery, as the 
former locality can afford to those who are bold enough 
* In the Western and Southern States several different fish, in nowise 
connected with the trout, nor belonging to the same family salmo, are 
known as trout. The fish so called from South Carolina, southward, is 
a variety of the Squeteague or wheat fish, Ofolithus Carolinensis—that 
misnamed trout in the West is a species of fresh water bass, or corvina. 
