48 



I think it is safe to say tliat there is hardly an individual, in the 

 north-eastern section of the country at least, who owns a suitable 

 stream, who either has not taken some steps toward stocking it with 

 trout, or wlio does not contemplate doing so at some favorable oppor- 

 tunity in tlie future. 



The change which it has wrought in the fish itself is very striking. 

 The brook tront, formerly known as one of the very wildest of the 

 wild creatures of the forest streams, has become a domesticated 

 animal. 



How fully the word domesticated will finally apply to trout that 

 are bred and grown artificially, time alone can decide. It is still a 

 very doubtful question, whether they will ever become so accustomed 

 and attacked to the habitations u'" man, that they will prefer to remain 

 around his homes and under his protection, like dogs and fowls, and 

 so become in tlie strictest sense, domestic creatures. 



Still this result is not impossible, perhaps not improbable. Cattle, 

 horses, swine, become as wild as buffaloes and zebras, when left to 

 run wild long enough. 



Artificial influences have given these creatures their domestic 

 habits. Why ma}^ not a sufficiently long course of similar influences 

 create a similar change in the habits of trout ? 



Again, trout are not afraid of man, when he has not taught them 

 to fear him. 



I have seen trout in forests of New Brunswick, as tame as some 

 of my domesticated ones, or, more correctly speaking, as little disposed 

 to be afraid. If, tlien, we can bring trout back to their original feel- 

 ing toward man, before they learned to be afraid of him, by teaching 

 them not to fear him, why may we not restore also their original 

 freedom from aversion to him. 



Again, I have at my ponds trout that were hatched from parents 

 iliat were themselves hatched there artificially. Now, it may have 

 been wholly a fancy, but there has seemed to me to be a diffei-ence 

 between these fisli and the oftspi'ing of wild parents in respect to 

 shyness, and that the artificially hatched progeny of domestic parents 

 were less shy than the artificially hatched offspring of wild parents. 

 If this is so, and the trout show" an improvement in one generation, 

 what may we not expect of fish in which domestication has been 

 hereditary for many generations? 



The time may come when continued domestication, together with 

 the overcoming of their fear of man, may so modify the present 

 action of their instincts, that when pains are taken with the domes- 



