1 62 THE TROUT 



river where the water is shallow, the current rapid, 

 and the bottom gravelly. 



The spawning season has then come. The fish 

 now begin to build their nests. This they do by 

 fanning up the gravel with their tails until a trench 

 is hollowed out, and a mound formed immediately 

 below it. These nests, called 'redds/ can be easily 

 recognised by the contrast of colour presented by 

 the under surface of the newly turned stones. Into 

 the trench the female enters, followed by the male, 

 and here the eggs (the hard roe) deposited by the 

 female and fertilised by the milt (the soft roe) of the 

 male are covered over with gravel by the parent fish. 



I have said that the eggs are fertilised. But as a 

 matter of fact a very large proportion of them escape 

 coming in contact with the milt and so perish, 

 or rather fail to come to life, for want of being 

 fecundated. The magnitude of the waste from this 

 cause alone has been estimated at more than one 

 half of the entire amount of spawn cast, and it is in 

 remedying this failure that the fish-culturist, coming 

 to the aid of Nature, achieves, as we shall presently 

 see, the first and perhaps the most conspicuous of all 

 his successes. 



Having ascertained that the fish are on the point 

 of spawning you will proceed to capture them with 



