96 FISH CULTUEE. 



the trout are of fine size, and in unusually good 

 condition. 1 



In lakes, also, it is a very common thing to find 

 the trout in one lake large, bright, and well fed, and 

 in another, very similar in appearance, and perhaps 

 only a bare half-mile distant from the other, they will 

 be long, black, and lean, with heads out of all pro- 

 portion to the thickness of the body. In another, 

 probably but a similar distance from the first two, 

 the trout will be abundant, but very small, though 



1 These insects of course thrive better in sluggish than in rapid 

 water, though they do well enough in either when there are weeds. 

 They are peculiarly well-adapted for lakes ; and were I owner of a 

 lake, I would leave no stone unturned to introduce them in large 

 numbers. Where the streams are too rapid for their plentiful pro- 

 duction, it would be by no means a bad plan to make here and 

 there (where the situation of the soil and the banks suited such a 

 plan) small shallow ponds, supplied with water by means of 

 a small pipe, and having an exit to the stream. In these the 

 requisite kind of weeds might be planted, a stock of these little 

 insects turned in, and some kind of offal or other food (see 

 page 22) occasionally being cast to them, and the insects left to 

 thrive and increase. They would of their own accord make their 

 way into the stream, where they would afford excellent food for the 

 trout. Other kinds of insects might be also placed in such food- 

 breeding ponds, where they might propagate and multiply in safety. 

 By such a method as this almost any amount of the food best 

 suited to the trout might no doubt easily be produced. For if we 

 increase the stock of fish, we must, of course, if their size and weight 

 is to be kept up, grow food for them somehow, and this seems not to 

 be a difficult plan. 



