ARTIFICIAL PEOPAGATION OF TROUT. 65 



Too frequently plants of fish in public waters fail to give the best 

 results because of careless and improper methods used in making 

 the plants. The Bureau of Fisheries delivers fish to applicants free 

 of charge at the railroad station designated in the application. It 

 devolves on the applicant to see that the fish thus furnished are 

 carefully and properly planted in the waters for which they are 

 assigned. Many times the fish are taken to the place most easily 

 accessible and the entire lot poured into water where there is but 

 slight chance of their escaping large fish or finding congenial sur- 

 roundings. The most suitable planting places in streams are to be 

 found near the headwaters or in small tributaries. The fish should be 

 scattered over as wide a stretch of stream as possible, in quiet, 

 shaded, shallow backwaters and eddies. Deep pools where large 

 fish are apt to be lurking should be avoided ; also quick water, where 

 the little fellows could not maintain themselves or find the food that 

 is essential to their well-being. In stocking lakes or ponds the best 

 places for planting are to be found in the small tributaries, as de- 

 scribed above. Whenever possible avoid planting directly in the lake, 

 but if it is impossible to do otherwise, select the shallow weedy 

 margins or other places affording the greatest protection from 

 enemies. Such places are the first to warm in the spring and they 

 are sure to produce the greatest amount of natural food for young 

 trout. 



BLACK-SPOTTED, LOCH LEVEN, AND BROWN TROUT. 



The methods employed in taking and fertilizing the eggs, the 

 incubation thereof, and the care of the fry, fingerlings, and adult 

 fish in the artificial propagation of the various trouts are practi- 

 cally interchangeable, and for this reason it is unnecessary to dwell 

 again on the fish-cultural processes. In the following pages the 

 three species of trout mentioned above are briefly described. Of 

 these only the black-spotted trout {Salmo lewisi) of the Yellow- 

 stone National Park is artificially propagated to any extent by the 

 Bureau of Fisheries. 



The brown trout is not propagated by the bureau, and the Loch 

 Leven trout is handled only incidentally at one or two of the Kocky 

 Mountain trout stations. Propagation of the latter two species 

 was discontinued because evidence was obtained from various sources 

 to the effect that almost without exception these fishes offered 

 nothing of advantage to the natural fish of the regions where they 

 were introduced, and in many cases their introduction proved to 

 be a serious detriment to the more valuable native species. 



BLACK-SPOTTED TROUT (SALMO LEWISI). 



Several varieties of the black-spotted trout have at various times 

 been artificially propagated. In the past the more important opera- 

 tions were conducted at the Leadville (Colo.) station of the bureau 

 and dealt with the black-spotted trout (probably Salma pleuriticus) 

 of the Grand Mesa Lakes, in Delta County, Colo. The Manual of 

 Fish Culture ^^ mentions the work of the Leadville station and that 



^ A Manual of Fish Culture, Based on the Methods of the U. S. Commission of Fish 

 and Fisheries, revised edition, p. 181. Washington, 1900. 



