BROOK TROUT 



deep in the water. Our own beautiful char may 

 never succeed in throwing off its domestic appellation 

 of speckled trout, or American brook trout, and since 

 this is so, and that a rose by any other name smells 

 just as sweet, I shall, for convenience sake, make use 

 of such common name, as many others now do, who 

 have no more intention or desire than I have to inti- 

 mate that this favorite fish is really a trout, or anything 

 more or less than a char, and one of the most elegant, 

 most gamy, and in every way most desirable mem- 

 bers of that highly favored species. 



Sir Humphry Davy has left us a description of the 

 leading type of the European char, from which we 

 may glean some idea of its brilliant coloring, though 

 British testimony is not wanting to establish the fact 

 that, in the richness of its livery, it still falls short of 

 the glorious apparel of the American brook trout. In 

 fact, no purely British fish, says the author of a paper 

 in Blackwood's on " Fontinalis in Scotland," can boast 

 the hues which deck the fontinalis. Never, he says, 

 have we seen such gorgeous and brilliant coloring in 

 any finny creature, excepting, perhaps, in some of 

 the quaint tropical varieties from the Caribbean Sea^ 

 which are shown to the traveller by negro fishermen 

 in Jamaica. 



Sir Humphry Davy had no personal knowledge of 

 our American brook trout, and it is therefore not sur- 

 prising to read that he had never seen more beautiful 

 fish than the European char, !' which, when in perfect 



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