NOTES ON RAINBOW TROUT. 63 



reputation of being, if possible, freer risers, quicker growers, and harder 

 fighters than the ordinary kind ; so far they seem to act up to their 

 reputation. The few I have caught fought like little demons, and it 

 was almost difficult to be able to restore them to the water and free 

 the hook before they had been practically exhausted by their frantic 

 efforts for freedom. 



The proper amount of fish with which to stock a given area of 

 water depends upon several circumstanses. First and foremost, of 

 course, it depends upon the amount of fish food in it. Many pools 

 and ponds are full of fresh-water shrimps, snails, and the like, all of 

 which are of very great value in developing and fattening your fish. 

 But as you do not want to depend upon bottom feeding for their whole 

 stock of food, admirable adjunct though it may be, it is well to place 

 round the margins of your waters all plants that encourage the increase 

 of fly food. Beds of the ordinary watercress are not only valuable 

 in this respect, but afford welcome shelter. Water lilies, if kept within 

 bounds, are equally valuable, and it must never be forgotten that, 

 especially in shallow water, shelter from the summer sun is an absolute 

 necessity if you wish your stock to improve. Other aquatic and semi- 

 aquatic plants should also be utilised freely, such as marsh marigolds, 

 starworts, bulrushes, &c. Nor should it be forgotten to plant alders 

 and fringing willows here and there. All trout, particularly rainbows, 

 take an alder fly readily. 



A certain area of water will not support more than a certain weight 

 of fish life. You can therefore either have that weight made up by a 

 large quantity of small fish or by a correspondingly smaller number 

 of larger fish. It is not prudent, therefore, to overstock. This question 

 has necessarily very considerable bearing upon your calculations. Nor 

 is it possible to fix arbitrarily any precise number of fish as being 

 capable of being supported by a given area of water ; an examination 

 of the water itself would be needed to determine this with any degree 

 of accuracy. 



Having, however, once determined upon the proper stock required 

 — and, in my opinion, it pays better to stock with two-year-old fish 

 than with yearlings — then an accurate account should be kept of the 

 fish taken out of the water each season, and a corresponding number 



