FOREST. AND STREAM. 
[Aprii. II, 1903. 
me to believe that there is no difference between brook 
trout and sea trout." 
In issue of January 24, Mr. E. A. Samuels, author of 
that charming book, "With Rod and Camera," which 
everj' angler ought to have and read often, gives a great 
deal of useful and interesting information about Sea 
Trout. His remarks show that he is a careful and ac- 
curate observer. Peculiarities of habit in different waters 
and mere "coloration" have little weight with him, be- 
cause he knows that all these vary with the rivers in 
which they are found, and indeed with different parts of 
the same river. His experience seems to have been large 
find various, his observation Careful and exact, and his 
conclusion irrefutable. 0\i]y in one respect does he differ 
from my own Conclusion, carefully and laboriously 
formed after 40 years* study, viz.— that the home of these 
trout is the open sea, and that their visits to fresh water 
are only eipisodes in their life. My conclusion, based on 
•nost carefwlly ascertained facts, is that their home is in 
fresh water, and that their visits to salt water are only 
two episodes in their history — the first in spring to feed 
•OR smelts, the second in the fall to recuperate after spawn- 
iing. During these two visits to salt water from their 
bome in fresh water, T have the strongest reasons to 
doubt that they ever go far to sea, or indeed far from the 
estuaries of their native rivers. Some of these reasons 
were given at length in Forest and Stream of December 
20 last, and until the facts therein set forth are either 
disproved or rationally explained, I must continue to hold 
my present belief that the so-called Sea Trout is simply 
the universally known Salmo fontinalis, and that it goes 
from its home in fresh water to brackish and salt water 
in the mouths and estuaries of its native rivers for the 
better feed found there ; but that it returns to its home 
in the upper waters after a longer or shorter stay lower 
down, dependent on the state of the river and the supply 
of food. If anyone — Scientist, Savant, Angler or Fisher- 
man, who all agree that this trout follows the smelt up 
rivers — can prove to me that after the smelt have spawned 
and left the rivers, this trout follows them down to sea 
■again, I may be inclined to reconsider a question I have 
BieM as settled for the last thirty-five years of my investi- 
gations. Venning. 
Since the above was written, I have read with much 
pleasure, in your issue of March 28, the letter of a brother 
Octogenarian, Mr. Von W., who says : "The w^eight of 
evidence is against Mr. Venning." If so, it must be 
against himself as well. An attentive reading of what I 
have said in combatting the widespread belief that the so- 
cilled sea trout is a species of Salmo distinct from fon~ 
iinalis, will show him that I have expressed throughout 
precisely the same belief that he himself hold? about these 
trout spending the winter in salt water. He will perceive, 
aho, that I incline to the opinion he expressc- that Salmo 
j^alar Avas originally a fresh water fish, as tht Oiiananiche 
iiow is. 
Since reading Mr. Cook's letter in your issue of March 
14. the disappearance of wild pigeons from the Eastern 
States and these Provinces is no longer a mystery to 
The Oid Angler. 
Boston, Mass., March 30. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Will you allow me space for a few words in regard to 
(he so-called sea trout. I notice that my old friends, 
Charles Hallock and W. H. Venning ("The Old Ang- 
ler"), differ as to their being a distinct variety' of the 
.salmon. Allow me to say that after thirty summers spent 
ir the pursuit of my favorite sport of salmon fishing on 
the Resligouche and tributaries, the York and St. John 
.at Gaspe, and for the past twenty seasons on the St. 
Marguerite, a tributary of the Saguenay. all of which 
livers abounding in sea trout (so-called) during all these 
years, I have been a careful observer of their habits, struc- 
ture, etc., and have yet to find a single point of difference 
between them and the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) , 
excepting that they have acquired the habit of spending 
a part of each year in the salt water, but always in the 
vicinity of the streams in which they are bred. They 
spawn in the upper reaches of the streams under the same 
conditions and at the same time as other trout 
As the question of food supply determines the habitat 
ot all animal life, it is easy to account for their 3'earlj' 
migrations to the sea, for there thev find a much larger 
supply of the most nutritious food, and as a consequence 
ihey .soon become the most perfect brook trout to be 
found on this continent. Their bodies are almost round, 
their meat a deep salmon color. They are nearly as 
silvery as the salmon. Their red and yellow spots disap- 
pear, as does also the brilliant color of their fins. In 
fact, they are transformed into what seems to be a higher 
order of the Salvelinus fontinalis. All of this change is 
in consequence of a much more favorable environment. 
Can you blame him for making the change? But the 
instinct of reproduction forces him back to his original 
iiijbitat, where he once more assumes his old garb of 
bright colors ; but loses very soon his perfect condition. 
I have angled for them; I have dissected them; I have 
eaten them ; I have painted their portraits in every detail ; 
hence I say that not a doubt exists in my mind as regard- 
ing their being brook trout and nothing else. 
In answer to Mr. Hallock's question, "When is a 'sea 
trout' a 'brook trout?'" I will say, ever and always, 
whether in fresh or salt water he is the much-loved fon- 
tinalis pure and simple. Walter M. Brackett. 
Our readers will doubtless be grateful to President 
Jordan for consenting to arbitrate and settle finally the 
thirty years' discussion of the sea trout question which of 
late has been traversed in all its breadth by Messrs. Ven- 
ning and Hallock, who of all men are perhaps the best 
qualified to treat it intelligently. In Air. Jordan's letter, 
which we append, he takes the same position which Mr. 
Hallock has always held, namely, that the brook trout 
and sea trout are the same species, but differing so widely 
in traits and habits that they require distinctive vernacu- 
lai' name to designate them. 
Stanford University, Cal., March 26, 1903. — Mr. Chas. 
Hallock, Washington, D. C, Dear Sir:— The sea trout of 
Canada is scientifically the same species as the ordinary 
brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis. It is, however, brought 
up in tlie sea, better fed, and developed under other con- 
ditions which makes it larger, fatter, more rangy, and 
without the peculiar colons which characterize the brook 
form. Presumably the young of any brook trout hatched 
out in the sea and fed in the sea would be the same, just 
as the son of a peasant becomes an aristocrat if brought 
up with plenty of money and under favoring conditions as 
to growth. 
Speaking scientifically, they should bear the same name, 
as all men are_ Homo sapiens, but in popular language, 
the difference in habits, appearance and conditions cer- 
tainly justifies the use of the name "Canada sea trout," 
or of any other name one may like to use. The red 
spotted trout of Alaska spreads out in the same way in 
the sea, and often weighs eleven or twelve pounds, turn- 
ing gray at the same time. The same is true of the Dolly 
Varden trout about Puget Sound, and in the upper Sacra- 
mento it never reaches the sea, and the large gray un- 
spotted ones are therefore unknown in California. 
David Starr Jordan. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
About Trout. 
Chicago, Illinois, Anril 4. — Mr. Horace Park, superin- 
tendent of the Ohio State fish hatchery at Sandusky, is 
good enough to send me a little bunch of flies of his own 
tying, and he writes in addition : 
"Your article of the 28th inst. has so much good sense 
and forceful truth to it I thought I would write you, as 
I do some fly-tying myself. I am a veteran fly-fisher, hav- 
ing had over forty years' experience. I have used all 
makes and qualities of flies, from American specimens at 
fifty cents each to Scotch flies at thirty cents a dozen. I 
have never found anything equal to flies of my own tying. 
The inclosed samples of Rocky Mountain buck tails I 
have found the very best killing flies for bass or trout. 
No. 8 for trout would be best. I use No. 4 for bass." 
These buck tail flies have the hackles black, the bodies yel- 
low orange, and the wing of brown buck tail hairs. There 
is a little red tag of worsted or crewel. The buck tail has, 
in the experience of many Chicago anglers, been found 
good for bass. I have not known many to use it for 
trout, but I have sometimes killed trout on the Prairie 
River with squirrel-tail hackle flies of my own rude rnan- 
ufacture. I should not be surprised if Mr. Park has given 
us a tip worth following, and myself and friends will try 
to imitate some of his very excellent amateur work- 
manship. 
I asked an intellectual friend of mine the other day 
whether he thought trout struck at the silver-doctor fly 
on account of the blended colors of the wing or on ac- 
count of the shining tinsel body. He answers : 
"I know a little of the psj'chology of humans, but 
ichthyological psychology is beyond me. A fish goes 
along the line of least resistance; but why a salmon un- 
willing to feed and unable to digest will seize an artificial 
fly is beyond me. Were it not for this I should be in- 
clined to think that the silver body of the silver-doctor 
was the attraction and that the feathers had little to do 
with it, and that perhaps the body suggests to the trout 
that it is a minnow ; it is possible that the feathers render 
the outlines less sharp and aid the simulation. I shall try 
a silver-doctor stripped of its wings and see how it 
works." 
The one unsolvable problem of all the ages is this same 
spotted little enigma. I am inclined to think this is what 
the Sphinx had on its mind all the while. 
E. Hough. 
Hartford ISuilding, Chicago, 111. 
Some Mistaken Adages. 
All adages are not true. Little by little one learns 
of new discoveries in natural science to upset many ideas 
once believed to be the truths of natural history. For the 
ja-iung student the best plan is first to make sure that all 
which he thinks he knows about the habits of animals are 
facts. If they are not, he should correct his mistaken 
ideas as fast as he can to make ready to learn better next 
lime. Legendary .stories of the best sort are beautiful, 
poetical, nistructive always — if one accepts them as 
stories, not histories. But to learn history truly, to know 
the character of any people, one must, of course, know 
what Ihey believed, thought and felt in their lives. Many 
a funny old adage, however, ought to be put in its place 
and not be confounded with fact. Let us try to foUoAV 
that plan with some of the most familiar sayings about 
animals. 
As G)Id-BIooded as a Fish. 
Of a person who has very little regard for the feelings 
of others, it is said generally that he "is as cold-blooded 
as a fish." For years it was not understood that fishes are 
not invariably cold-blooded. Taken as an order, reptiles 
and fishes are colder animals than mammals and birds. 
But the bodies of all the so-called "cold-blooded" animals 
vary in temperature according to their surroundings. To 
our sense of touch a fish in water is of the temperature of 
the water. But the warmth of the blood depends on the 
amount of blood in the body. All fishes are not cold- 
blooded by any means. The adage is only imperfectly 
true. There is a tunny, a sort of giant mackerel, which 
has a three-chambered heart, which breathes only the air 
it gets dissolved in water, but which, nevertheless, has 
blood as warm as that of a pig, and a pig is supposed to 
be a very warm-blooded animal indeed. If the brook 
trout cannot live in water which is at all warm, the cat- 
fish, on the contrary, can live and thrive in water which is 
disagreeably warm to the human hand. The great Hum- 
boldt is himself the authority for the statement that he 
has seen fishes thrown up alive and unhurt from vol- 
canoes when the water which spouted them forth lacked 
two degrees of the boiling point. That, perhaps, is not so 
difficult to believe when one also knows that fishes are to 
be found in hot springs where the temperature of the 
water is 120 degrees Fahr. 
To Drink Like a Fish. 
Does the fish drink at all? That is the question. 
How ridiculous it is to say of a human being that he 
drinks like a fish ! It is exactly what no human being can 
do. The reason is interesting. A fish takes water into its 
niputh, because tha): is the way it breathes tli^ aifr Wh^^r? 
water is stagnant no fish dan live, it being neCeSSary for 
it to have the air which passes through water. When you 
see fishes opening and closing their mouths regularly, --.s 
they do in water, they are not drinking; they are breath- 
ing. The act of breathing is as follows : 
The fish opens its mouth to let the water flow in ; then 
closes it and contracts the gill cavity to force the water 
out. The water, you understand, is not swallowed by this 
process. Wbat the fish does not swallow it cannot be 
said he drinks. If, by any chance, a fish is dragged back- 
ward through the water it will be drowned, just i.?. a 
human being is drowned for want of air. By the creature 
being dragged backward the gills become clogged. They 
close completely, making it impossible for the air in the 
water to be properly breathed. If, on the contrary, the 
fish is obliged to keep its mouth open for any length of 
time while in the water, it must also drown, beCausse the 
water is then not forced pa."*t the gills. How, then, does 
a fish drink — if he drinks at all? Perhaps you may find 
the answer. One fact is certain, that the more a human 
being drinks, the less true it is to accuse him of drinking 
like a fish. — Our Animal Friends, 
Salmon Cttltute in America, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
If I could see where the laugh Comes in, 1 would readily 
join my old friend Livingston Stone in hjs mefrirrt<nt 
against myself. I Said nothing irt my rejoinder to Mr. 
S, to Convey the impression that I thought his letter to 
Mr. Marston was a reply to mine. On the contrary, I 
stated explicitly that it was his letter to Mr. M. I con- 
sidered disingenuous, and I now regret to see the same 
disingenuousness in his allusions to me printed in your 
issue of March 28. 
Mr. S. says his letter to the editor of London Fishing 
Gazette was a friendly and private one, not intended for 
publication, hence he did not feel called on to furnish sta- 
tistics. But all the same, Mr. S. did publish his lettefj 
and still he ^ave no statistics ttof any proofs of thg con- 
fident assertions he made to the public. I have the 
greatest respect for Mr. Stone, but I cannot take even his 
opinion as final in a matter of such great financial and 
economic importance as the efforts now being made on 
the Pacific Coast by the United States Fish Commission 
and the Canadian Government to enable a few wealthy 
canning companies "to eat their cake and have it, too." 
Had Mr. Stone been candid with his friend, or had he 
wished to give him data on which to base a sound 
opinion as to the utility of Salmon Culture on the 
Pacific Coast (it being, according to Mr. S.'s own show- 
ing, utterly useless on the Atlantic Coast), he should have 
mentioned the overcrowded state of dll the Pacific Sainton 
rivers north of Sacramento, as- described by every writer 
who has dealt with the subject, and even by Mr. Stone 
himself. 
Mr. S. seems to think that the Sacramento facts and 
figures given by Mr. Babcock in your issue of March 21 
are applicable to all the rivers north of it. As a matter cf 
fact, Mr. Babcock confined his statistics to the Sacri- 
inento River. What he says about the Columbia and its 
branches consists entirely of opinions and assertions ; but 
he does not deny that "the 1,200 miles of drift nets, the 
destructive wheels and the other murderous appliances" 
mentioned by Mr. Stone, are still in full activity on a river 
where the commissioners are striving to keep up the sup- 
ply by hatching houses operated at the public expense. 
Though residing in Victoria, B. C, it is significant that 
Commissioner Babcock has not a word to say about Sal- 
mon hatching on the Eraser and Skeena rivers ; nor does 
he drop a hint as to the overcrowded state of these rivers; 
nor does he express an opinion about the wisdom of tax- 
ing the whole people for the benefit of a score or two of 
rich canning concerns who also are trying to achieve the 
feat of "eating and having their cake." Would Mr. Bab- 
cock tell an interested public what he thinks about these 
things? The Old Another. 
New York Angflingf. 
Utica, N. Y., April 4.— Under the game laws of 
New York Steate the taking of brook trout will be 
permitted on and after April 16, a date which is now 
not far away, and fishermen who are accustomed to go 
in quest of the speckled beauties, are preparing for an 
early start. Ordinarily, there is apt to be more or 
less ice and snow remaining when the season opens, 
and the trout do not bite well in central Ncav York 
streams for some time thereafter, but this spring the 
weather conditions have been so exceptionally favor- 
able, there is every reason to believe the fish v.'ill be 
ready to rise as soon as the angler is allowed to cast 
his lure. In the Adirondacks, too, the indications 
point to a remarkably early fishing season, as the last 
vestiges of winter are rapidly vanishing. The predic- 
tion is made with considerable confidence by many 
anglers that there will be excellent trout fishing this 
summer in the larger streams up north. Last year the 
streams were so high all through the season, owmg to 
the continuous rains, that but very few trout were 
taken from these waters, hence it is anticipated that 
there will be rare sport this year, providing, of course, 
that the conditions for fishing are favorable. For more 
than a dozen years past the Black River Fish and Game 
Protective Association has annually placed in the wa- 
ters of Oneida County thousands of small trout, and 
the beneficent effects of this work have become very 
apparent. Excellent fishing is now to be had in a 
number of streams", which, had it not been for the re- 
stocking, would have long since been depleted. It is 
gratifying to note that similar organizations are be- 
ing formed in different parts of central New York to 
assist in replenishing the trout streams, and that public 
sentiment in favor of this work is constantly growing. 
The season when pike, pickerel and lake trout can be 
legally taken opens May i. and black bass fishing be- 
gins June 10 on the St. Lawrence River, and June 16 
in other waters of the State. The muskallonge season 
opens May 31. 
W. E. Wolcott. 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 
^Jew York, and not to any individual connecte4 with the paper. 
