Miscellaneous Suggestions. 431 



and a half pounds sixteen months before ; for it is hardly 

 conceivable that any of the first lot should have attained 

 more than that weight between September 29th, 1882, 

 and June 1st, 1883 only seven months. 



It seems to me, on reflection, that we must have been 

 mistaken in the size of the largest fish we saw, though 

 we judged it at the moment to be twenty-four inches 

 long. If so, it must have weighed very closely upon 

 one side or the other of six pounds, and that seems ut- 

 terly incredible. Clearly the three fish of four pounds 

 which were taken could not all have been the original 

 two-and-a-half pounder, since they were three different 

 fish. Still assuming such to be the case, or assuming 

 every trout in the pond to have weighed two pounds 

 and a half on June 1, 1883, the least it seems possible 

 to allow is an increase of one and a half pounds in six- 

 teen months, a result sufficiently surprising. 



If one may judge from what one sees, the necessity 

 of holding a spring-balance by its suspending ring when 

 weighing trout, so that it may hang perfectly perpendic- 

 ular, is not as well understood as might be supposed. 

 It is the extent of the compression of a spiral spring 

 that is to be read. The extent that this spring will be 

 compressed by weights indicated on the scale has been 

 marked by the maker. That the same compression 

 may result from the same weight, the spring must be 

 free to act without it and its connecting parts rubbing 

 against the inside of its casing; that is, the body of the 

 spring-balance must be perpendicular. Gravity will in- 

 sure this if the spring-balance be held by its suspend- 

 ing ring, as it should be when in use. 



