312 SALMON AND TROUT, 



however, be remarked that much will turn on the smallness of 

 the fry. Trout are sadly indifferent to family ties, but they will 

 thrive on their infant grandchildren or great-grandchildren, 

 whereas the occasional assimilation of an adult son or daughter 

 will not keep them in condition. The heaviest meal will not 

 fatten when it takes ten days to digest. Hence the great value 

 of a good supply of minnows in a trout stream. Easily caught 

 and greatly relished, they tend to check the practice of infan- 

 ticide among elderly trout, while they are fattening from being 

 readily digestible. 



I have roughly guessed at two pounds as the weight be- 

 yond which a trout should not be wholly dependent on insect 

 diet ; but they sometimes take to the minnow very early. I 

 remember watching a fish on the upper waters of the Frome 

 extremely busy among some fry just where a small drain joined 

 the stream. I was fly fishing, but, failing to raise him, I caught 

 a tiny stickleback, clipped off the spines, and threw it to him 

 on a double worm hook like a fly minnow. He took it in- 

 stantly, and on landing him I found that, though weighing litde 

 more than three-quarters of a pound, he had actually forty-six 

 small minnows in his maw, the uppermost freshly swallowed,while 

 those farthest down were more than half digested, and perhaps 

 more numerous than I made them out by the tale of backbones. 

 This fish, though he had taken to a minnow diet so young, 

 was very thick and firm-fleshed. 



But it is for keeping up the condition of really large fish 

 that an abundant supply of minnows is especially desirable, and 

 I would strongly urge proprietors and angling clubs to lose no 

 opportunity of obtaining additions to the local stock. There 

 are plenty of small streams and spring ditches where minnows 

 abound, with no trout to keep their numbers down, and it will 

 be best to obtain them from a great variety of waters. Care 

 must of course be taken that no fry of * scale fish ' find a place 

 among them. 



Next to the minnow in value as food for trout comes that very 

 delicate little fish, the stone-loach, or ' beardie,' the delight of 



