120 PRACTICAL TROUT CULTURE. 



the last year, been very abundant at Troutdale. 

 We keep for their accommodation a large spear 

 with six well-sharpened prongs. When alarmed, 

 the snake hides himself in the weeds at the bot- 

 tom of the pond, and can be frequently speared 

 and killed. It may be well here to state that none 

 of our northern water snakes are venomous, 

 though the deadly moccasin of the south is 

 aquatic. Craw-fishes, it is said, cause serious in- 

 jury by burrowing in the banks, but though these 

 Crustacea abound in our locality, we have seen no 

 proofs of this. The French writers denounce frogs 

 as eaters of the young fry. This may be true of 

 French frogs, but we know from experiment that 

 ours are innocent of any such propensity. 



But the enemy most to be dreaded is man, and 

 will be until our legislators and the public look 

 with less leniency upon fish-stealing. A large pro- 

 portion of the trout offered for sale in the New 

 York markets bear upon them the marks of the 

 silken gill nets, with which they were illegally 

 taken ; and a proposed law for the protection of 

 private fish ponds, making their robbery a felony 

 in lieu of a" trespass, was recently rejected in the 

 Legislature of a neighboring State by an almost 

 unanimous vote. The burglar alarm telegraph 

 might prove valuable, though we have never heard 

 of its having been applied to this purpose. 



