How to obtain it. 255 



which have reached a stage when they can take care of themselves, 

 hunt for their food, and feed well when they get it. They are 

 also much more capable of avoiding their enemies, and do not 

 run the same chance of being eaten that fry do. Next to eyed ova : 

 yearlings are, I should say, in the long run, the most economical. 

 Two-year-olds are larger, and are in some instances available for 

 angling sooner, but I would back a good yearling against a two- 

 year-old in many cases. They are more easily transferred, are not 

 so much affected by the journey, and become more readily 

 acclimatized, as it were, to their new water and surroundings. It 

 is true two-year-olds are larger, but the cost of transfer is very 

 much greater, and the price of the fish is necessarily much higher 

 to begin with. Good yearlings turned out in autumn, where there 

 is food in the water, are almost, if not quite, as good as two-year- \ 

 olds turned out in winter. The cost is certainly much less. 



Yearlings require much less preparation for a journey, and 

 therefore do not receive such a check to their growth as two-year- 

 olds. They travel well in either metal or glass carriers, and in 

 warm weather in spring the glass carriers have several times won 

 the day. I have often sent yearlings to the Hebrides, Orkneys, 

 Cornwall, and to distant parts of Ireland, and they travel as a 

 rule without loss. Of course, with such delicate beings a mishap 

 sometimes occurs, but it is only one in a crowd. It happens so 

 seldom, indeed, that it is quite unlocked for, and, when it takes 

 place, is invariably due to some very exceptional cause. Some 

 trout, for instance, were once put close to a large fire in the 

 baggage room, by some well-meaning porter, who " thought the 

 poor things would like keeping warm." What the result would 

 have been had they not .been discovered and removed I need 

 hardly describe. Occasionally, careless shunting may cause a few 

 deaths amongst fish that have their heads to the carriers, but 

 these are very few. When yearlings are to be sent away a fine 

 net is run through one of the ponds, care being taken not to lift 

 too many fish at once. It is easy to slack away the net a little 

 before lifting, and so let out a goodly number if necessary, and lift 

 the remainder. A thousand fish is a sufficient number to lift out at 

 one haul, and as three or four thousand fish will often be in the net at 

 once, this means allowing a good many to escape for the time being. 



