98 AMERICAN FISHES. 



when intentionally confined in fresh-water lakes ; as well as by the 

 enormous rapidity >of growth manifested in the Salmon smolts, which, 

 having been a year and a half in fresh water, attaining a length of 

 seven or eight inches, and a weight of about so many ounces, after a 

 visit of a few months to the sea, return not only reinvigorated in con- 

 dition, but increased in bulk to seven or eight pounds weight. 



This accounts very readily for the superior size of what Mr. Smith 

 designates as a distinct species of Sea Trout, which is, in reality, only 

 the Brook Trout on his return from the sea. The circumstances of 

 its condition speak for themselves. 



Who ever saw a Salmon fresh-run from the sea, of whatever size or 

 age, otherwise than in excellent condition and of rare beauty ? Who 

 ever took a spent fish, of the same species, that was not ugly, lean, 

 discolored and uneatable ? 



The silvery whiteness and the bluish back of the Sea Trout, as 

 described above, is peculiar to all fresh-run fish of this family ; and in 

 Scotland a skilful Salmon-fisher will tell you, at a glance, how many 

 tides a fish has been in the river, merely from seeing him leap at a fly 

 or a minnow. 



All the other marks, cited by Smith as characteristics, are merely 

 signs of condition, as the brilliancy of the^ coloring, the breadth and 

 thickness of the fish, and the comparative smallness of the head, which 

 is produced by no alteration whatever of that portion of the body, but 

 by the increase and development of the body itself, which at this sea- 

 son and stage of the animal, is equal in its circumference to one-half 

 its length. 



It is well known and undisputed in Long Island, that the Pond-fish 

 and Creek-fish, as they are termed, pass to and fro between the fresh 

 and the salt-water ; and although the Creek-fish are occasionally there 

 called Sea Trout, it is by no means as implying that they are of a 

 different species, but merely indicating the water in which they are 

 taken. 



The fish to which I referred above in my introductory remarks on 

 the Salmonida, as being perhaps a distinct kind, analogous to the 

 Salmo Trutta of Linnaeus, is by no means this Trout, but a very differ- 

 ent animal, found only in the eastern and north-eastern rivers, which 

 empty their waters into the Bay of Fundy or the Gulf of St. Law- 



