THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



embedded in the skin ; so small indeed tliat not a few anglers 

 •vdll teU yon the brook trout is scaleless. 



' One trout scale on the scales I'll lay, 

 (If trout had scales) and 'twill outweigh 

 The wrong side of the balance.' 



Lowell. 



The brook-trout, Salmo fontinalis, the prince of Eastern 

 American game fishes, impresses one that he lives in clear, cold, 

 wild waters. He is trim and well groomed, his colours brilliant 

 and distinct. He is always on parade, alert, quick of motion, 

 and a veritable joy to the real angler, who has fair play, not 

 murder in his heart. 



In the United States many of the most beautiful streams and 

 brooks are devoted to brook-trout, which has a wide range from 

 weU north in Canada, to Northern Georgia. All the species are 

 entrancingly beautiEul, and on light rods they prove themselves 

 fighters of the first quality, I recall a sotdful little stream I 

 frequently fished in sight of the White Mountains in Vermont, 

 where the old homestead of a branch of my family stood on a 

 lofty hill affording a fine view for miles, down a long deep vaUey, 

 with Mount Washington on the eastern horizon. The Little 

 trout stream wound down from the hills into the valley, and was a 

 virtual tunnel, elms, beach and willow covering it, and shutting 

 out the sun except here, and there, where vagrant rays broke in, 

 on which the gnats danced in long sinuous lines. The sides 

 were lined with brakes and ferns, the great boulders covered with 

 a tapesrry of rich green moss that yras a profanation to disturb. 



Every few yards there was a diminutive pool in which were 

 many brook-trout waiting for the lure, which, owing to the gloom, 

 was generally a Eoyal Coachman. Often I merely crept up 

 to the edge and watched them rise at the leaves which sailed 

 down and along Uke mimic ships. They were little trout for 

 little people, and the children of my kinsmen had fished this 

 dainty stream nearly two centuries. 

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