GROWTH OF TROUT. 45 



grow SO last when three or four years old as before ; that 

 is, the rate of increase diminishes with age. The average 

 age of a Trout is perhaps twelve or fourteen years. On 

 this point we cannot speak with certainty. When I first 

 commenced building ponds, five years ago, a large Trout 

 was caught from the brook, which I supposed then to be 

 three or four years old. From its size and beauty it was 

 deemed worthy of being distinguished by a name. Helen, 

 as she was called, throve well in the pond to which she 

 was transferred, and increased in size and comeliness : at 

 the beginning of the present year she seemed to be as well 

 as ever and as large; weighing nearly four pounds. But 

 during the year, without any perceptible sickness, she has 

 diminished in size, her back has turned gray and grizzly, 

 and she presents a stunted appearance, which says as plainly 

 as words to the spectator, this Trout is old and gray and 

 wrinkled. Judging from this and from others in our pos- 

 session, we suppose a Trout to be in its prime when 

 it is from three to ten years old. The size is altogether 

 a question of food. On Long Ishmd where tliey have access 

 to the salt water and feed on the numberless small fisli and 

 Crustacea abounding in the sea, the Trout are notoriously 

 large, while in the mountain stream, where the food is 

 scarce and precarious, it is just as well known that the 

 Trout are small. The size to which a Trout may grow is 

 not very well settled ; so many " fish stories " have been told 

 that discredit is thrown even upon well authenticated asser- 

 tions. Trout may in exceptional cases and in large waters 

 attain the weight of eight or ten pounds, but the largest one 

 I ever saw weighed five pounds and two ounces ; and a 

 four pound Trout is generally considered to be ot pretty 

 good size. This question of size is interesting rather to 

 the sportsman than to the Trout farmer. It is universally 

 considered by all old Trout-eaters that small Trout are the 

 best — say from one-quarter to one-half a pound. A better 



