462 SALMON AND TROUT. 



NATURAL FOOD. 



The one great difference between my treatment of young 

 fish and the plan adopted by some other pisciculturists lies in 

 1 Feeding.' It must not be supposed that my fish are turned out 

 into the ponds without any thought of how much food they 

 may get ; on the contrary, it is by the most rigid preservation of 

 the natural food that I am able to grow yearlings to the size and 

 number I usually do. Every little water-course on my grounds 

 is utilised as a means of producing large quantities of natural 

 food, and any one who knows the immensely prolific nature of 

 aquatic insects, will soon understand that I have no difficulty 

 in providing sufficient food for the fish in all stages. Two or 

 more ponds of a 'sequence ' are set apart for the reproduction 

 of food only, and as these are properly situated a great quantity 

 can be sent down to the nursery ponds as often as necessary. 



Stone (p. 225) says, * Trout's food, when wild, consists chiefly 

 of water-insects, smaller fish, larvae, fish eggs, Crustacea, and 

 the flies and insects which fall from the air into the water ; 

 all of them together forming an astonishingly extensive variety. 

 The quality of their food affects the growth and appearance of 

 trout, and it is even thought that the difference in the colour of 

 their meat is sometimes caused by certain kinds of feed; the 

 fresh-water gammari, or pulex, being supposed especially favour- 

 able to the production of red-meated trout.' At p. 289 of 

 F. Buckland's ' British Fishes,' he says, ' Some trout are white- 

 fleshed, and some are pink-fleshed ; some say it is dependent 

 on the food, but I think this cannot be the entire cause, for I 

 have caught both pink and white in the same net, and both 

 living exactly under the same circumstances. One theory of the 

 cause of the flesh being red has lately been told me by the Duke 

 of Argyll, who believes that red-fleshed trout have been feeding 

 on the fresh-water shrimp, and that the horn-like coats of this 

 little animal turn red in the stomach through the action of the 

 gastric juices. Lord Dorchester also writes that "his best 



