SALMONIDiE. . 51 



At all events, we should not be tantalized by information so Tagu'e 

 and indefinite as that conveyed in a note to the appendix, contributed 

 by the members of the Piseco club to Dr. Bethune, for the beautiful 

 and valuable edition of Walton's Angler recently given to the Ameri- 

 can world — ^with notes on American fishing, the only fault of which 

 is their brevity — by that accomplished fisherman and erudite scholar, 

 who takes no shame to be held a follower of the gentle art, and to 

 possess the finest piscatorial library owned in the United States, 

 whether by private individual or collective body. 



" In June of this year," says the note to which I have reference, 

 " the president of this club killed a red-fieshed Lake Trout of 24 lbs. • 

 weight ! ' ' And no more ! 



Information of the same kind has been given to me by. Mr. C. Web- 

 ber, the author of some pleasant letters on Hamilton County Fishing, 

 published during the past year in the columns of the New York 

 Courier and Enquirer ; but, unfortunately, none of the fortunate takers 

 have noted any points relative to this fish, on which any deliberate 

 opinion can be formed. 



The flesh of the ordinary Lake Trouts of America^ Conjmis^ Ame- ■ 

 thystus,'B,nd Siska/witz, are all pale, dingy, yellowish buff, tasteless, 

 coarse, muddy, and flaccid. 



It seems to be admitted that the red-fleshed Lake Trout is of more 

 brilliant external coloring than the common variety. 



This is the fish of which I have spoken at page 43, as bfeing un- 

 questionably a distinct species, if not an overgrown and gigantic variety 

 of the Brook Trout, Salmo Fontinalis. This latter, I believe to be 

 the case; though it ia impossible to pronounce positively, without 

 seeing the fish, and instituting careful comparison. 



The fishermen of that drstiiQt, on the lake, assert, I understand, 

 positively that this is not the case ; but of course their opinion is utterly 

 valueless, being founded on some such admirable reason as that the 

 Brook Trout never grows to be above five or six pounds ; meaning 

 only that they have never seen what they take to be one over that 

 average. Just in the same manner, a person used to take fish only in 

 the small mountain brooks of Maine, New Hampshire, or Vermont, 

 might tell you quite as plausibly, quite as positively, and quite as 

 truthfully — so far aa his miserable experience of truth goes — that the 



