354 ■ REPORT OF THE 



the female are more of a yellowish hue on the live specimen and less conspicuous 

 than indicated in the plates. This observation is applicable to the spots on the 

 male, but the spots on the male should always be more red and more conspicuous 

 than those on the female. The white edges of the fins of the males are far more 

 conspicuous in the live specimens and these white tips are very noticeable when the 

 fish are in motion, as seen hovering about the spawning grounds. 



To describe them from the standpoint of an angler I cannot do better than to 

 quote from a letter of Mr. C. H. Simpson of New York City, who has a summer 

 residence in the township of St. Alexis and a hatchery near the Red Lakes. Mr. 

 Simpson has probably had more experience with the so-called red trout than any 

 other individual sportsman. He says: " I have fished in the three lakes near Sacca- 

 comi a number of times and in many ways and without any real results. I have 

 never taken any there on a fly, but have taken three or four on a troll while in deep 

 water. We have taken them for purposes of propagation by set lines and fishing on 

 their spawning beds for the first two or three weeks after the ice v/ill bear, but the 

 best results have been obtained in April, through the ice. 



" From what I have seen of these fish and the few experiments I have made, I 

 conclude that they are naturally bottom feeders, but I think there is a possibility 

 of changing their habits by new surroundings, as I will explain to you. At first I 

 had both varieties of trout in the same artificial pond. The red trout would occa- 

 sionally mix themselves in with the brook trout and jump for the food thrown 

 them, but would more often work over the entire bottom of the pond, picking up 

 the smallest particle, that the brook trout had missed. In these artificial pools they 

 would always jump more or less for an artificial fly. The meat of the red trout is 

 more palatable than that of our brook trout, is not so dry and is more oily. In the 

 Red Lakes there are practically no minnows, but some perch and shrimp and all 

 manner of water insects. The trout there have no occasion to seek theix food on 

 the surface, and fishing for them with fly and troll is lost time. Lake Carolus has 

 dark water with only three or four sandy beaches and bays, and nearly the entire 

 bottom of the lake is covered with a water grass or moss that grows up four or five 

 feet high. This is teeming with all manner of insect life. I stocked this lake six 

 years ago with the red trout, putting in about 20,000 fry. In the last three years 

 we have probably taken a dozen red trout — one this summer weighing four pounds, 

 trolling a minnow. Out of the dozen possibly three were taken in casting. They 

 are there, but there is too much of the insect life to tempt them up. I think this is 

 right and is quite well borne out by my experience with them in my third lake, 

 Ferron, which is just back of Carolus. It is about half the size of Carolus and 

 entirely unlike it, being of a pure white water, all sand}^ bottom, rocky shores and 



