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of the day—11 a.m. to 5 p.m. summer time-—in the reservoirs 
which supply the town with water. They are on the edge of 
Dartmoor near Lustleigh, probably 800 ft. or more above the 
sea. In all nearly 150 trout were caught, the larger number 
of which were examined. These particular trout were chosen 
because of the local interest, but in previous years I had been 
examining the food and food-supply of the fish in the Teign 
and Avon, this being very different from that of the reservoirs. 
While the food of the river trout consists largely of true water- 
insects, the reservoir trout subsist largely on land-insects, 
accidentally fallen into the water. In cold, bad weather 
they must get very little food, but when the ants are swarming, 
spiders ‘flying,’ and dung-beetles of the genus Aphodius 
filling the air, the water is covered with insects. Minnows 
are very abundant, but none of the fish examined contained 
-any, though one had swallowed a newt. The bad ‘rising’ 
qualities of the trout are often put down by fishermen to the 
abundance of minnows, but are really due to absence of water- 
flies to bring up the fish to the surface, the water being very 
deep. Whena‘ minnowing’ trout is observed, it will generally 
rush at once at an artificial fly, such as a red palmer, and is 
easily caught and generally large. The largest fish caught 
was 3 lbs. 1 oz.; the weather was bad then and had been so 
on the previous day and land-insects were not active. This 
was the only fish that was risen on this day, and it contained 
no food, although minnows were in shoals in its vicinity. 
The ‘rising’ qualities of the trout could be greatly improved 
by the introduction of suitable aquatic insects, but frequent 
emptying of the reservoirs would interfere with such a plan. 
“On one day, when land-insects were very active, six 
trout averaging ? lb. each, were examined. All contained 
practically similar food, and the whole digestive tract was 
crammed with this. | 
“The food-contents of one were examined in detail and the 
constituent species arranged for exhibition. They were. as 
follows :—CoLEoPTERA—46 species of beetles. LEPIDOPTERA 
—wing of Noctuid moth and a whole Tineid. NeuropTERA— 
small caddis-fly and cases of two species; also head of dragon- 
fly nymph. Ruyncnora—large Pentatomid bug and 3 species 
