Miscellaneous Suggestions. 421 



urge upon the beginner to provide himself with a spring- 

 balance at the very outset, and to train his eye and his 

 tongue by the graduations upon it. However these 

 things may be, the fact remains unchanged, and it cer- 

 tainly is a fact, that genuine brook trout of ten and even 

 eleven pounds weight have been, and may be taken in 

 the Rangely Lakes the very same species of trout which 

 inhabit the mountain streams of New York and Pennsyl- 

 vania ; but it is also true that trout of over nine pounds 

 weight are quite rarely caught. 



On the 30th of September, 1884, one of the Maine Fish 

 Commissioners netted from a pool on Rangely Stream 

 nine trout, in the following order and of the following 

 respective weights in pounds : 1-J, 3, 4-J, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7^, 

 and 4 total 46 avoirdupois, not guessed, pounds. The 

 pool in which they were found was small, shallow, and 

 accessible, and the fish plainly visible ; and it was to 

 protect them from the wiles of a possible poacher that 

 they were netted, and conveyed to the larger pool below 

 the dam. But in the pool last named were then to be 

 seen fish beside which the largest of those above numer- 

 ated seemed small. It was the general opinion of those 

 accustomed to net, weigh, and handle these large trout, 

 that two of them would each closely approximate to, if 

 they did not exceed, ten pounds. They were seen by 

 perhaps a hundred people, myself among the number. 



Now how old were these fish, or rather, how many 

 years does it take for a trout to reach such size ? Some 

 think a hundred years, some thirty, some ten; but all 

 admit that their estimate is mere conjecture. 



The rate at which trout will gain in weight is univer- 

 sally admitted to be largely a question of food-supply, 

 influenced somewhat by the depth and quantity of water, 



