AMONG THE RAINBOWS 87 



The part of it which interested me most, as a 

 mere amateur, was a long stretch of deep water 

 forming an oblong pond, well protected by 

 gratings at both ends, through which a constant 

 supply of water flowed in and out. In this pond 

 were about 1,000 three-year old rainbow trout, 

 very fine and healthy fellows. I suppose they 

 would average about ilb. each. A sight worth 

 going a long way to see was their being fed 

 feeding the lions at the Zoo is nothing to it. 

 Fancy, if you please, 1,000 big trout all making 

 a dash at the meat as it is spooned out to them 

 from a bucket. Every ladleful of food disap- 

 pears in an instant, then they roam round about, 

 backwards and forwards, always on the look-out 

 for another ladleful. Although their dash made 

 the water boil, there did not seem to be any 

 fighting amongst them. Every one took his 

 chance of getting what he could, and was satis- 

 fied. A few, however, bore marks of old wounds 

 as though at some period of their existence, prob- 

 ably in the spawning season, there had been 

 war among them. 



My experience with rainbows was rather 

 peculiar. A year ago Mr. Roberts had turned 

 into the open river a number of yearling rain- 

 bows as an experiment, quite expecting that, 

 according to tradition, they would soon disap- 

 pear, and probably many of them had gone 

 down the river on their usual exploring expedi- 



