The reader, therefore, if he wishes to ascertain the scientific designation of a fish, should in the first place determine the number and location of the fins, the number and quality, as soft or hard, of the rays, the number of gill-rays, the characteristics and position of the teeth, the formation of the gill-cover, and lastly, as every numscull, the drawing teachers assure us, who can write can draw, a drawing of the fish, or at least an outline, should be made. The latter can be done simply by laying the specimen on a sheet of paper, spreading out his fins and running a pencil round him. And then the would-be naturalist will ascertain whether or not he belongs to a class so very liberal as to include salmon and smelt in the same category. He must not forget that it is much more important to study the nature, habits and food of the denizens of the water than to store his memory with their names, “for our philosophers hitherto, instead of studying their nature, have been employed in increasing their catalogues, and the reader, instead of observations or facts, is presented with a long list of names that disgust him with their barren superfluity.”
CHAPTER II.
THE AMERICAN TROUT.
The Brook Trout—The New York Charr—Salmo fontinalis.—Salmon tribe; ventrals in abdomen, rays soft.
The shoulder and first back fins have each eleven rays; the second back fin is mere fatty matter and rayless, the characteristic of the salmon tribe; the ventral has eight, the anal fifteen, and the tail nineteen rays. The back is dusky green, mottled with yellow spots; growing lighter on the sides, where the spots have irregularly a beautiful blue or carmine speck in the centre; the belly is silver white, with a roseate tinge as it fades into the darker colors of the sides; the shoulder fins are yellowish at the base, the ventrals yellowish red, the anal reddish, and in all the rays are dusky. The gill-covers have no defined spots.
The body is covered with delicate scales that will escape all but the strictest observation. The teeth are on the tongue and throat, but none on the roof of the mouth discernible to the naked eye; there is an outer row on the lower jaw, and an inner and outer row on the upper jaw. This fish is so well known to the public from its extensive distribution through the northern States, and so totally dissimilar from the Perch and Bass, miscalled Trout at the South, that a more particular description does not seem necessary.
Another fish taken at the North in the smaller lakes is called Red Trout, and attains the weight of twenty-five pounds. It is rare, and would appear to be an undescribed species, differing from the trout of the brooks and lakes, and not generally known even to sportsmen. A fish of a somewhat similar character was on exhibition at an eating-house in this city, but appeared to have been scaled. It was three feet six inches long, and weighed eighteen pounds. The back was very dark, the sides being of a lighter neutral tint, without any spots. There were a number of vomerine teeth, and the fin-rays, as far as could be ascertained by a cursory examination, were—
Br. 12; D. 13; P. 11; V. 8; A. 11; C. 19-5/5.
This fish was said to have been taken in Maine, and differed entirely from the ordinary brook and lake trout. The fin-rays of the brook trout, as scientifically given by De Kay, are—
D. 13·0; P. 12; V. 8; A. 10; C. 19-6/6.
Trout are in season from the first of February to the first of September in the Long Island streams; from April to September in those streams of the New England States that communicate with salt water; and from May till September in the upland waters of the middle and eastern States.[1] There is but one mode of taking them—namely, with the fly; although it is said poachers and pot hunters capture them with worms, minnows, nets, and even with their own roe. These villanies are not at present punished with death nor even imprisonment for life; but our legislature is looking into the matter, and there is no telling how soon such statutes may be passed.