Food of the Togue. 24.1 



The togue abounds in the great lakes at the sources of the 

 St. Croix and St. John rivers, deriving one of its local names 

 from the Toledi Lake, where, and in Lake Temiscouata, it is 

 extremely plentiful. Dr. Gilpin, of Halifax, seems to have 

 been the first to proclaim its presence in Nova Scotia. 

 According to Dekay, it is common in the lakes of New 

 England, where Europeans give it a variety of names; 

 its western and northern extension, however, is imperfectly 

 noted. I am unaware of the namaycush and togue having 

 been met with in the same waters. The partiality of the 

 latter for certain lakes, or at all events its seeming absence 

 from others to all appearance better adapted to its habits, may 

 be more apparent than real, seeing that, like non-migratory 

 lake trouts in general, it passes much of its existence in the 

 profoundest depths, as is shown by the frequent use of a thirty 

 fathom line in fishing for togue through the ice. It repairs 

 to shallows to feed on trouts, smelts, and the like ; indeed the 

 last-named fish would appear to constitute its favourite winter 

 subsistence, inasmuch as out of several individuals dissected 

 by me in midwinter, and from different lakes, all contained 

 smelts. It preys extensively also on eels and cyprinids, and 

 is in fact a tyrant with an appetite so voracious, that quan- 

 tities of twigs, leaves, and fragments of wood are constantly 

 found in its stomach. The great monster will sometimes rise 

 to spinning tackle, but in so sluggish and undemonstrative a 

 manner, that the troller may fancy he has caught a water- 

 logged pine or stone. In this way, I had my line checked 

 on the Schoodic lake, when striking gently, I found I had 

 missed a large togue, whose trenchant teeth had made a 

 series of deep furrows in the chub with which the hook was 

 baited. It is rare for this fish to rise to spinning tackle, and 

 the Indian who steered the canoe assured us that he had not 



p. no, gives 113 coecal appendages and 65 vertebras, which, unless it is a 

 mistake, shows considerable irregularity in the numerical proportions of 

 the former. 



R 



