GROWTH AND AGE OF TROUT. 53 



pounds a pretty rapid rate of increase certainly. But 

 I should consider the rate of growth above stated to be 

 very far beyond their ordinary scale of development in 

 rivers, where perhaps only one in a thousand ever 

 reaches the weight here indicated, and must have been 

 owing to the extremely nutritious quality and abund- 

 ance of their food. 



Another interesting subject to the scientific sports- 

 man, is the ordinary duration of the life of trout, and the 

 question whether or not they continue to increase in di- 

 mensions for an indefinite period. 



I think I need scarcely waste time in refuting such 

 an absurd idea, as, if there was to be no definite limit to 

 the age and growth of fish, we might be saluted some 

 fine morning in our piscatorial wanderings, by a vener- 

 able trout as old as Methuselah and as huge in dimen- 

 sions as the kraken of Norway. The only information 

 I can give on this subject is the result of experiments 

 made by a gentleman upon trout preserved in a pond, 

 and related by Mr. Daniel in his " Eural Sports." Ac- 

 cording to that authority, the trout attains its full growth 

 in four or five years, which in some specimens of that 

 age amounted to a length of thirty inches, but the 

 majority were considerably less ; that for a period of 

 three years more, after arriving at maturity, they re- 

 mained in a stationary condition,, with very trifling 

 alteration, either in size or quality ; but in two years 

 more the ninth or tenth of their existence the head 

 seemed to become disproportionately enlarged, and the 

 body lank and wasted, and during the winter succeed- 



