88 Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting. 
which contain a very great many native mountain trout. These 
lakes are under lease to the United States government for the 
purpose of permitting the United States Fish Commission to 
take therefrom spawn for government use in propagation. The 
present superintendent of the hatchery claims to me that the 
large male trout in the lakes are very destructive to the fry, 
a portion of which are each year returned to the lakes by the Fish 
Commissioner, and advises that a large number of these males 
as stripped be not returned to the lakes, but marketed. 
This is the first time I ever heard that the male native trout 
are more cannibalistic than the female, or that the native trout 
was essentially cannibalistic, except where other food was scarce. 
Other food being abundant in these lakes I have never supposed 
that the fry were suffering in that way. 
Yours truly, 
D. C. BEAMAN.” 
Another gentleman asks, to what age do brook trout attain ? 
President: I think this society ought to have some members 
able to answer almost any sensible question in regard to trout, 
and [ hope that we shall hear from some one. 
Secretary: I should like to hear Mr. Titcomb’s opinion on 
both these questions. 
Mr. Titcomb: I have heard a great many stories about trout 
living to a great age, enclosed in spring holes, where they have 
very little food, but had water of a perfect quality and absolute 
aeration probably; and they did not attain large size. I would 
not want to say how many years they would live under those con- 
ditions. I do not think that we are capable of judging of the age 
of trout at all by those we keep in our hatcheries under domes- 
tication. 
Mr. Meehan: We have had brook trout live in our hatch- 
eries about 24 years, the males living longer than the females. _ 
We find too, that as a rule in our hatchery ponds, the trout do not 
attain the same size and weight as those that may be caught in 
the streams. I have a record at my office this year of something 
hke 30 brook trout (that is the charr), caught in Pennsylvania 
waters, that will run from three and one half to four pounds, 
