IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



to find adequate maintenance. The wheel 

 had come full circle. 



This observed sequence seems to have a 

 bearing on the question whether or no 

 these waters contain tvvo species of trout, — 

 one capable, the other incapable, of grow- 

 ing to a large size. The native fishermen 

 answer it in the affirmative, but I am not 

 aware that biologists give any support to 

 their universal belief. Your gafifsmen will 

 assert, even in the case of very small fish, 

 that this one is of the race des grosses, and 

 that of the race des petites, but they are not 

 in perfect agreement as to the indicative 

 signs to which they point. The hundred 

 and fifty-two transplanted trout were not 

 all of the race des grosses, according to 

 Michel, yet all grew evenly and rapidly, 

 and we are yet to hear some instructive 

 word of their descendants. 



A thoughtful and experienced fisherman 

 of these parts holds the opinion that cer- 

 tain members of one and the same family 

 can become tine race degeneree: in our 

 case we may have been observing this very 

 process. Where natural conditions pre- 

 vail in a given water over a length of time, 

 the trout rise or fall to a size from which 

 there is little variation. In the absence of 

 88 



