40 AN ANGLER'S SEASON 



the rule are inconsiderable. Thus, Mr. 

 Armistead was justified in inferring from 

 the result of his experiment that out of 

 every seventeen spawn-beds noted by the 

 water-bailiffs soon after the trout had 

 been set free, only one bed was of any 

 value whatever. The other sixteen beds 

 were sterile. The lake was losing stock 

 at the rate of many thousands of trout a- 

 year. There are other waters, rivers as 

 well as lakes, in which the same waste 

 has been mysteriously going on. 



Why is it that in many a water the 

 female fish tend to be much more plenti- 

 ful than the males ? There are three 

 known causes of the disproportion. One 

 is that male trout are so much rasher than 

 females that three of every four trout in 

 the fly-fisher's creel are males. Another 

 is that large and well -nourished female 

 trout produce more female than male off- 

 spring. The third cause is the destruction 

 of young males by large old ones. Male 

 trout, Mr. Armistead says, "fight so 

 fiercely that any one who has had oppor- 



