188;3.] TROUT BREEDING. 137 



will be more fish in the stream than at the beginning. Such 

 streams are very exceptional. There are other streams 

 where you will find good fishing for two or three days, and 

 take so many out that there will not be enough left to justify 

 going there again, and the fish have a rest, because people 

 cannot catch enough to pay for fishing that stream. If you 

 go and examine those streams, you will find that they rise in 

 different neighborhoods, although very near each other, per- 

 haps, and they run through a different course. A stream 

 that runs through woods, mosses, and forest land (I do not 

 mean simply woods, but where the rocks are covered with 

 moss, and where the underbrush grows near the stream) 

 abounds in small shell-fish, snails, worms, and creeping 

 things of all sorts, which serve as food for the young fish. 

 The great difficulty is to feed the fish when they are very 

 small, before they get large enough to eat large food, and 

 such streams as I describe furnish food to the small fish, and 

 but few of them die. They live and attain their growth, in 

 proportion to the size of the stream. They will increase and 

 grow faster than they can be caught out, because we do not 

 take out the very small fish, but leave them in the stream, 

 for growth and propagation. These streams that are fished 

 out have not these supplies of food ; the fish grow larger, and 

 are fewer in number-; and when you take them out, there 

 are but few small fish, comparatively, to take their places by 

 growth. 



You will also observe that there is another point connected 

 with streams. In a stream which has its head-waters in 

 woods, there are usually found pools, and while, in the hot 

 summer days, the main stream dries up, these pools remain 

 filled, and at certain seasons of the year the trout will travel 

 up to these pools in large numbers ; at other seasons of the 

 year they will pass down stream to the larger ponds, where 

 they will spend the larger portion of their time. So you see 

 you have got to have a good many conditions, and it is almost 

 impossible to secure all these conditions. You only find them 

 exceptionally in nature. These are some of the difficulties in 



