32 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



not breed until another year, to go to th^ spawning 

 grounds also, to feed upon that most delicious piscine 

 delicacy, the eggs of trout. 



When the females arrive the pairing begins, and our 

 male char, which we have always called a trout, and al- 

 ways will, although we know better but have a love for 

 the name, in his full war paint, his belly now nearly 

 black, with bright crimson on his lower sides and his 

 back beginning to change from oliva green to buff, his 

 lower jaw if he is over two years old with a fleshy 

 tip which prevents his mouth from entirely closing, is 

 now ready to do battle with any rival. The use of the 

 hooked lower jaw of the male trout and salmon is not 

 fully understood. Some one has said that it was for 

 grasping the female in order to help her to extrude the 

 eggs, but he does no such thing. Many days I have 

 lain on the loose boards covering the spawning races of 

 my trout ponds in western New York in order to see 

 the spawn actually cast and impregnated, and I watched 

 one pair of trout eleven mornings before my curiosity 

 was gratified, and I afterward saw the operation four 

 times without such weary watching, for I knew that 

 courtship and nest-making preceded spawning by many 

 days. In no case did the male assist her delivery in any 

 way. 



This is what I saw. The female seemed indifferent 

 to the attentions of her mate. He chose her and drove 

 off all others, fighting savagely at times and biting the 

 sides of his rivals so that the scratches of his teeth could 

 be seen, and several males died from the fungus which 

 attacked the wounds. He would not allow another fe- 

 male to come too near the nest. He took no part in mak- 

 ing the nest, but kept his place in the stream by her side 

 when she was quiet, usually with his head alongside her 



