208 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



as well as if late in the season wlien few flies are born. When the water is 

 opaque a worm or spinning bait may be employed with success. In small streams 

 real flies and grasshoppers may be used as bait for hooks and a short line which is 

 bobbed on to the surface of the stream from over a bush. If once pricked by the 

 hook it is generally but not invariably shy : while it is disturbed by flies clum- 

 sily thrown or splashing into the water. Frosty weather checks trout moving, 

 and while snow water, or that derived from the melting of snow, is running into 

 a stream it is almost useless attempting to fish with the rod. 



In the dry weather, at the Orkneys in 1882, the water in the Loch of Harray, 

 on the west mainland, was reduced in volume and rendered tepid by a succession 

 of hot days. The trout assembled in shoals at the mouths of the burns and were 

 slaughtered in thousands by netting. 



As regards angling, Mr. Fiiancis observed in The Fishing Gazette that " the flies 

 which I now use at Drifiield are hardly i of the size with which I used to kill 

 nearly fifty years ago, and there is no small difliculty in obtaining undrawn gut 

 fine enouo-h for the anglers' purpose. But Mackintosh, who fished the same 

 waters at the beginning of the century, tells us of a time when the flies thrown 

 there were almost of lake size, and when he found it a good plan to tie his 

 droppers on hog's bristles." 



j^aits. — Worms as brandling, gilt-tail meadow-worm, tug-worm and red- 

 -^yorm — for a large one a well scoured dew-worm. A minnow or any small silvery 

 fish, a loach, or a bullhead with its fins removed. 



Breeding. — Trout commence breeding in their second year or prior to their 

 attainino- 24 months of age, and often later in the season than their parents. The 

 males are more forward than the females, but at this early period of their lives 

 the probabilities of the ova being healthy and fertile are less than in somewhat 

 older examples. At first the number of males appears to be in excess of the 

 females, but the mortality among them is greater than in those of the other sex, 

 until at 3 or 4 years of age the proportion may be expected to be about the same, 

 and subsequently females preponderate. The number of eggs pi'oduced by each 

 female trout has been roughly estimated at 800 for every pound's weight of the 

 fish, which computation has been observed at the Howietoun breeding ponds to 

 be fairly accurate. But the size of the parent exercises a considerable influence 

 on that of the eggs, thus in Sir J. Gibson-Maitland's fish farm we found the 

 following average numbers to be present — in 2 and 3-year-old fish, O'l 7 of an inch 

 in diameter; in 6-year-olds, 0-18 to 019 inch.; and in 8-year-olds 0-20 to 0-22 

 inch {see p. 25 ante, also under the head of Lochleven trout, p. 228). The colour 

 of the eggs are as various as observed in the salmon, and I have seen some 

 orano-e, others straw-coloured, from two fish taken together out of the same 

 breeding pond.* 



As the young trout, unless due to exceptional circumstances, grow more quickly 

 the earlier the spawn has been deposited, or rather get a better start early in 

 the season, it is advisable if possible to get young from November eggs rather 

 than those from January and February. 



The period at which these fish breed varies in different rivers and districts, 

 extending from October until February and even, although rarely, to March. f 



* Jacobi's paper on Trout HatcJiinri, 1763, appeared in Hie Hanover Magazine; it \Yas trans- 

 lated and reproduced in Yarrell's British Fishes. 



t Col. Whyte writing to Land and Tfrt^er observed, "I visited the spawning ground for a trout 

 lake of mine on February 10th, and there were not one-half the usual number of redds. Again 



1 went there one month later, and found the usual number, and the trout were seen spawning 

 there during the first week in March. Generally speaking, the spawning is finished in November." 

 W. B. Scott, Field, ]\Iarch 22nd, 1884, stated, " Trout in the river Teign and its tributaries, also 

 in the river Kenn and several other streams in this neighbourhood (Chudleigh), are now full of 

 ripe spawn. I have known the streams here for fifty years and I never heard of such a circum- 

 stance before. The proper time for trout spawning used to be in the late autumn months, 

 October and November." E. N., Field, February 9th, 1884, remarked, "I have this morning, 

 February 2nd, taken out of my trap two pairs of spawning fish, one of the males being nearly 



2 lb. One pair had partly spawned exactly in the same spot where some of the November fish 

 had spawned, whose eggs are now just hatching and not likely to be improved by being 

 disturbed." 



