396 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



fish often form food for trout, Lebault advises the feeding of 

 trout by throwing into the pond chippings of bread, curds, 

 grains, or the entrails of chickens, or of any bird or beast you 

 kill to feed yourselves. On the score of feeding trout in pre- 

 serves, our experience is that they are generally fed too much. 

 In ponds where feed is scarce, living bait should be thrown 

 in, such as minnows, mummies, shrimp, and all kinds of fish 

 which nature intended for bait by forbidding them ever to 

 become more than three inches in length. But even this 

 should be done sparingly. We have known several ponds on 

 Long Island where the fish died while they were fed sump- 

 tuously, and when dead were found to be in excellent condi- 

 tion. We regret to state that some animals endowed with 

 the exterior semblance of humanity keep trout-ponds, and pre- 

 tend that they are waters intended for the propagation of 

 trout, when, in reality, they are pounds, or liquid bastiles, 

 wherein to imprison trout until they command a high price 

 in Fulton Market. When they get orders for them, they at 

 once feed them with a huge meal of mummies (small fish), 

 and when the trout have gorged themselves so that, in some 

 instances, the tails of the fish which the trout vainly endeav- 

 ored to swallow are seen protruding from their mouths, these 

 Peter Funks then sweep the pond with a net, and send the 

 trout thus stuffed to market, and receive therefor the price 

 which healthy trout command. During the past season one 

 dollar and a half a pound has frequently been paid for trout 

 bought at wholesale. It is said that these Peter Funks rob 

 the trout-streams of their neighborhoods by means of nets 

 during the close season between the first of September and 

 the first of March and deposit their stolen gains in liquid 

 pounds, where they feed them until the market opens, for it 

 is unlawful to catch or sell trout during the close season, ex- 

 cept for the purpose of science or the object of propagation. 



