AMEIUCAX FISHERIES SOCIETY, 79 



Mr. TKconil): Mr. Pi-csidcnt, I have not much to contrih- 

 uto on the subject of this paper, but in Vermont no self-re- 

 spoctinji" trout wiJl eat a newt; they will eat the leach, the 

 blood-sucker, but we have trout ponds stocked with trout 

 where natural food is scarce, where the fish do not attain a 

 larjie size on account of the lack of food, and the same ponds 

 are teeminj; with newt. I have never found a newt inside of 

 a trout. I have been aware they would occasionally eat them. 

 I am surprised that tlH>y would in some places where they have 

 so much other food, like the insect larva^. As to the gam- 

 ma rus, I have very little ex])erience except in some observa- 

 tions made in the commercial trout hatcheries of Mr. Gilbert 

 at Plymouth. He has rather a crude station ; that is, he has not 

 kej)t up with the times in fish culture, perhaps, but in some 

 ways he has accomplished a good deal with natural food. His 

 ponds are teeming with the gammarus and the banks of the 

 streams tlowing into the ponds are teeming with the gam- 

 marus. You take a sod out of the banks anywhere and lay it 

 down on the walk and it is alive with them. He claims that 

 he gets a finer colored fish and a better flavored fish by getting 

 so much natural food, and that his trout artificially reared 

 can not be distinguished from the wild trout. He cooked some 

 for me and I could not see but that they were just as good as 

 the wild trout which T take out of the streams of Vermont. 

 But certainly a large number of the fish were dependent upon 

 the gammarus to sustain life. 



Secretary Whitaker: I sup])ose there could not well have 

 been much diflterence in the fish if the food was the same as 

 the wild trout. 



Mr. Titcomb: I do not suppose there could. He had really 

 imitated natural conditions very closely. 



Secretary Whitaker then read the following paper: 



