44 
KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND CHARES. 
fish to be distinguished from the well known forms were taken in Sunapee Lake during the 
su mm er of 1881. The fish taken weighed from two to three pounds each. 
In Forest and Stream, December 18, 1890, p. 435, Dr. T. H. Bean adduces evidence that 
the White Trout is indigenous to the lake, from information furnished him by Commissioner 
Hodge. Commissioner Hodge was an earnest advocate of the idea that it was native and 
the various disputants discredited this evidence. While it has not been admitted in the 
discussion of the trout in this paper as positively authentic it is in line with what has been 
stated regarding what usually occurs when a strange fish is discovered. Dr. Bean writes: 
“During a visit to New Hampshire, in October of this year, the writer first met his friend and 
correspondent. Col. Elliott B. Hodge, a gentleman whose name is thoroughly identified 
with fish culture and protection in the State which he loyally serves as Fish and Game Commis- 
sioner. We were at Plymouth and Sunapee Lake together, and discussed many objects of 
mutual interest, among them the golden trout, which Col. Hodge first brought to the notice of 
ichthyologists and which was introduced to the general public through the columns of ‘Forest 
and Stream.’ From him I learned many interesting things relative to the history and habits 
of the new trout, and, as they have an important bearing upon the inquiry now being made into 
the relationship of the golden trout to the introduced saibling, I think this an opportune time for 
making the information public. 
“Mr. Pike, who was born and brought up at Sunapee Lake, says that about twenty-five 
years ago he and his father saw a great school of trout in the lake. They caught a good many of 
them, but never looked for them again because they supposed it to be a mere chance occurrence. 
“Mr. Nat. Lear, of Newbury, N. H., told Col. Hodge that when they were building the 
Concord & Claremont railroad, in 1872, shortly after the introduction of smelt, he and some 
others were catching smelt at the mouth of Beech Brook one night (this brook is a tributary of 
Sunapee l^ake), when they saw what they supposed to be a large sucker and dipped it up. It 
proved to be a white trout of 4 lbs., and looked to him, as he remembers it, just like the aureolus, 
which he has seen since. It was very white and silvery. 
“Mr. Moses Gould, of Bradford, N. H., who was one of the earliest trout fishermen on the 
lake and fished from boyhood, claims that in 1875 he caught two large trout of this kind in 
Sunapee and showed them to a number of persons as a very peculiar trout. 
“About 1873 or 1874 Thomas Roach caught two trout through the ice in Sunapee, one of 
which weighed more than 7 lbs. Up to 1871 Sunapee Lake was practically unknown as a fishing 
lake for trout, and there were scarcely any boats on the lake. The little fishing that was done 
was chiefly for pickerel. No one fished in deep water for trout until their accidental discovery 
in great depths about 1881 or 1882. The aureolus, being a very late spawner, came on to the 
shoals at a time when there was little or no travel across the lake. 
“A Mr. Peabody stated that in 1881 or 1882 he saw a big school of suckers on the shoals south 
of Loon Island, Sunapee Lake. Of course, there is little doubt that these were golden trout.” 
