474 
AMERICAN FISHES. 
pounds after three days’ captivity, and was thought by experts to have 
lost a pound and a half in transit from Maine to New Jersey, where it 
died. Its length was thirty inches, and its circumference eighteen. 
Another, from Mooselucmaguntic, weighed eight and one-half pounds, 
and measured twenty-five inches. The Nepigon River claims still heavier 
fish. Hallock mentions one said to have weighed seventeen pounds. 
There are many local races of Trout ; the same stream often contains 
dissimilar forms, and those bred in different hatcheries may easily be dis¬ 
tinguished. Whoever has seen the display at the April opening of the 
trout season at Mr. Blackford’s, in Fulton Market, N. Y., can under¬ 
stand the possibility of almost infinite variety in form and tint within the 
limits of one species. Fish inhabiting swift streams have lithe, trim 
bodies and long, powerful fins; those in quiet lakes are stout, short- 
finned, and often overgrown. In cool, limpid brooks, with sunlight, 
much oxygen, and stimulating food, their skins are transparent and their 
hues vivid ; in dark, sluggish pools they are somber and slimy, and are 
called “ Black Trout.” Agassiz noticed that those of the same river 
varied accordingly as they haunted its sunny or shady side. They have 
the power of changing their tint at will. The influence of the nerves 
over color was neatly demonstrated by M. Pouchet, who produced a 
white side in a Trout by destroying the eye of that side. In the sea, for 
reasons unexplained, both Trout and Salmon lose their gay colors and 
become uniform silvery gray, with black spots. In the sea, too, the flesh 
assumes a reddish color, due no doubt to the absorption of the pigments 
of crabs and shrimps eaten by the fish. Red flesh is also found in some 
inland races. 
Our Trout are strong feeders, but are dainty rather than greedy. They 
consume moderate quantities of food, and it suits their capricious ap¬ 
petites to seize their prey while living. They take objects at the surface 
with an upward leap, instead of downward from above like the Salmon. 
Of all foods they prefer the worms washed out of the bank, then gayly 
colored flies, water insects, little fishes, larvae and the eggs of fishes. 
Those in domestication are usually fed on the heart, liver and lungs of 
animals killed for the market. 
Their daintiness, shyness, cunning and mettle render them favorites of 
the angler, who lures them into his creel by many sly devices. The most 
skillful fisherman is he who places before them least obtrusively the bait 
