As will have been seen, the conscientious and lamented Thad. Norris, when he wrote as above quoted, thought that the Canadian sea-trout were not the English _Salmo Trutta_, nor the _Salmo Fontinalis_, and as proof gave this table showing the number of rays in the fins of the following fish:
He adds, speaking of the last two fish--"there being only a difference of one ray in the pectorals, which may be accidental." I am credibly informed that some years after his book was written, and after a more familiar acquaintance with the _S. Canadensis_, his views underwent an entire change, and that he wrote "the _S. Canadensis_ is the _S. Fontinalis_ gone to sea."
The space allowed me for this paper will not admit of my quoting further from the writings of those above mentioned or of others upon this subject.
I will now state, as briefly as I can, my own views resulting from long familiarity with brook-trout, gained by thirty-five years of angling for them, my acquaintance with the sea-trout of Long Island, and those found in Canadian waters. In regard to the markings of the fish _immediately after migrating from salt to fresh water_ it is unnecessary to say more, except that the vermicular marks differ somewhat in different fish. Some that I caught and examined closely had, as Scott says, "vermiculate marks on the back very plain and distinct." And on others, as Norris writes, "the markings on the back were lighter and not so vermiculated in form, but resembling more the broken segments of a circle." The fish in this respect differ from each other far less than often do brook trout, taken from the same pool. Norris thinks the sea-trout more slender in form than the brook-trout until the former attains the weight of two pounds. I have not been able to discover this difference between sea-trout and the brook-trout taken from the waters of this State. The trout of Rangeley Lake, and waters adjacent in Maine (I assume, as I believe, they are genuine brook trout), are thicker and shorter than trout of the same weight caught in the State of New York, or the Canadian sea-trout. I have two careful and accurate drawings--one of a sea-trout which weighed four and one-quarter pounds, and measured twenty-two and one-half inches in length, and five and one-eighth inches in depth--the other of a Rangeley trout that weighed eight pounds, and measured twenty-six inches in length, and eight and a half inches in depth. I have seen and measured several Rangeley trout two of seven pounds each, one of four and one-half pounds, etc., and in all I think there was a similar disproportion as compared with the other trout above mentioned.