SILVER TROUT. 
59 
“Keene, N. H., October 30, 1872. 
“Dear Sir: I send you by express to-day a few specimens of the ‘silver-trout,’ or ‘Dublin 
trout,’ as they are called here. They were caught in Center Pond, in Dublin, yesterday, and 
are fair specimens of the variety found there. 
“The pond lies at the foot of Monadnock Mountain, and is sometimes called Monadnock 
Lake. The shores and bottom are covered with a fine white sand. The water is always much 
colder than that in the neighboring ponds, as it is fed only by deep springs, there being no stream 
running into the pond. The water is also very clear. In the pond are a few dace, perch, and 
eels, which are not in any way peculiar. I believe the flesh of these trout is a fine salmon-color, 
and they have a great local reputation for the angler and for the table since the settlement of 
the country. They are caught only in May or June and in October, when they seek their 
spawning-beds in the shallows of the pond. Great numbers were formerly taken from the 
spawning-beds, but they are now protected by law at that season. They are thought by our 
anglers to be a different species from the brook-trout of our New Hampshire streams, and by 
some are claimed to be ‘land-locked salmon.’ I hope these specimens may enable you to 
decide these questions. As the colors will be damaged by the alcohol in which I send them, I 
give you the notes of the coloring of a female, measuring nine inches in length and weighing 
four ounces: iris, dark-brown; upper part of head, black; gill-covers, silvery wliite, with pris- 
matic reflections; lower jaw, white, with a dark line near the mouth; back, light olive-green; 
sides, light-green to lateral line, and then much lighter, shading rapidly to white of belly, the 
whole gleaming like silver in the sun-light, even under water; belly, white, tinged with bright 
vermilion. Sides covered with golden spots, rather faint in color, from one-eighth to three- 
sixteenths of an inch in diameter; lateral line very distinct; the pectoral, ventral, anal, and 
caudal fins bright vermilion, with the larger rays in each white; the dorsal and adipose fins 
olive-green, mottled with brown; the scales are small, but very distinct. The male is darker 
colored, with much more red upon the belly, and has small red spots in many of the yellow 
spots, resembling much more some of our brook-trout. I may add that no other pond, as far 
as I have learned, has trout marked like these. 
“Hoping these specimens may arrive safely and in a satisfactory condition, I remain, 
yours, truly, “Thos. E. Hatch, 
“Com. on Fisheries for New Hampshire. 
“Professor S. F. Baird. 
“[These fish proved to belong to the group of lake-trout, probably closely related to what 
Dr. Prescott called Salmo symmetrica . — S. F. B.]” 
In Forest and Stream, vol. 10, page 196, April 18, 1878, appeared an article by Dr. D. S. 
Jordan entitled “Prof. Jordan on Characteristics of Trout,” from which the following brief 
comment on the Silver Trout is extracted : 
