ENEMIES OP THE LAKE TEOUT. 491 



have been found in their stomachs may be mentioned an open jack-knife, seven inches long, which 

 had been lost by a fisherman a year before at a locality thirty miles distant, tin cans, rags, raw 

 potatoes, chicken and ham bones, salt pork, corncobs, spoons, silver dollars, a watch and chain, 

 and, in one Instance, a piece of tarred rope two feet long. In the spring wild pigeons are often 

 found in their stomachs.. It is thought that these birds frequently become bewildered in their 

 flight over the lakes, settle on the water, and become the prey of the Trout. 



In the review of localities already given mention has been made of many large individuals ; 

 the only estimate of average accessible is that by Milner, who remarks : " The smallest ones that 

 are taken in any numbers are fifteen to eighteen inches in length, and these are not very numerous. 

 The average weight of the Lake Trout taken in the gill-nets is nearly five pounds. It is claimed 

 that in years past they averaged much higher. They are quite frequently taken weighing fifteen 

 pounds. A specimen of a female was obtained last summer at Shoal Island, Lake Superior, 

 weighing twenty-four pounds. One taken at Grand Haven, Michigan, in the month of June, 1871 — 

 a female — weighed thirty-six pounds and one-half. After the gills and entrails were removed it 

 weighed twenty -nine pounds. It measured three feet six and one-half inches in length. 



"The tradition of the largest Trout taken is preserved at each locality, ranging from fifty to 

 ninety pounds. One that I am satisfied was authentic, from having taken the testimony of those 

 who saw it weighed, and having the story confirmed by Father Peret, of Mackinaw, was taken at 

 that place in 1870, and weighed eighty pounds." ' 



Enemies. — "There are no species of fishes in the lakes," writes Milner, "sufficiently formidable 

 to be considered enemies of the Trout after they mature. The spawn and fry probably suffer to 

 some extent from the same causes that the ova and young white-fish do. They are troubled with a 

 few parasites, especially a tape- worm that is found very numerous in the intestines of some of them. 

 Solitary individuals, knowii among the fishermen as ' Eacers,' are found in the summer time 

 swimming sluggishly at the surface. They are easily taken with the gaff-hook, and bite readily at 

 any bait thrown to them. They are always very thin in flesh. Dissection of the few that I have 

 taken failed to find any adequate cause for their condition. The parasites were generally present, 

 but not in any larger number than in healthy fish. The fishermen on the north shore of Lake 

 Michigan generally keep a few hogs. The offal of the white fish is fed to them freely, but they are 

 very careful to allow no trout offal to be thrown in their way, asserting that the hogs, after eating 

 Trout, frequently become crazy and die. The only plausible explanation of this fact, if it is a fact, 

 is that some entozoon of the Mackinaw Trout passes through one stage of its development in the 

 hog, and occasions disturbance of the brain, having much the same habit as the cystic Ccenurm 

 does in the sheep. Dr. Bannister informs me that the opinion prevailed among some of the 

 Russian residents of Alaska that a tape-worm was occasionally produced in the human subject by 

 eating the Ghaiwicha, Salmo orientalis Pal., the largest species of Salmon common in that countrj'. 

 The fact that it was quite a common practice to eat fish frozen, or dried, or salted, without cooking, 

 would favor the introduction of any parasite existing in the body of the fish." 



The livers of Lake Trout are thought by the fishermen to be poisonous. Mr. James Patterson, 

 of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, cites an instance, which occurred not many years ago, where all the mem- 

 bers of a family were poisoned by eating trout livers, and were a long time in recovering from 

 the effects. 



OuLTUEE.— "The Lake Trout has for years been the subject of attention on the part of the 

 New York State commissioners, and their agent, Seth Green, who every autumn collects millions 



Milner : Fisheries of the Great Lakes. 



