TROUT. 15 



all obstacles, however, and hurry on to the bright 

 brooks and pebbly shallows. The " redds " are 

 selected where the streams are clearest and purest, 

 where gravel prevails without the presence of 

 sediment. It is interesting to watch the fish settle 

 down to their domestic duties, and now much of 

 their ordinary watchfulness seems to leave them. 

 Although this facilitates observation, it also assists 

 the fish-poacher in his nefarious task. When the 

 female trout has scooped out a hole with her snout, 

 she deposits the eggs at intervals in the sand. 

 Whilst this is proceeding, with what care and 

 attention her lord attends her ! See how he rises 

 and falls, now passing over, now under, and 

 settling first upon this side, then upon that. 

 Observe, too, how he drives off the young and 

 unfertile fish which are ever lying in wait to 

 devour the spawn. When the " milt " has been 

 fertilised, the whole is covered over, there to 

 remain till the eggs are hatched. The quantity 

 of spawn deposited is such as to suggest that 

 nothing which man could do would have any 

 appreciable influence ; and this is more readily 

 understood when it is known that a trout deposits 

 one thousand eggs, and a salmon upwards of nine 

 hundred, for every pound of their live weight. In 

 this connection, however, a vast number of enemies 

 have to be taken into account. A single ill-timed 



