CAUSES OF DEGENERATION OF AMERICAN TROUTS IN AUSTRIA. 



ByJOHANN FRANKS, 

 Director oj the Fish-Culture Establishment at Studenec and Secretary of tlie Fisliery Commission for the 



Province of Krain. 



[Translated from the German.] 



I have had to do with the feeding of rainbow and brook trout in ponds and 

 inclosures for seventeen years. I have had experience with rainbow trout in 

 clear running water for thirteen years, and much more thoroughly and in detail 

 with brook trout for eight years. 



The two species are excellent as breeders, first class and far superior to the 

 native trout (Salmo jario) . They can consume an astonishing amount of food, 

 their appetite is extraordinarily persistent, and they repay the voracious feeding 

 by astoundingly rapid growth; they remain well, keep their beautiful vivid 

 coloring, and yield excellent spawn, even "red eggs" when in the proper condi- 

 tion and in surroundings suitable to salmonoids. The view that the degenera- 

 tion of this fish, wherever it has occurred, is a result of natural tendencies and 

 the qualities of our water, and that the degeneration was to be expected in the 

 nature of things, I entirely repudiate, for I am convinced that the degeneration 

 is the effect of artificial conditions unsuitable to salmonoids. 



The true reason for the degeneration of these fishes is in faulty methods on the 

 part of the fish culturists. The brook trout especially has been greatly dis- 

 credited in Vienna and in other places, being pronounced very weak, its flesh 

 distasteful, etc. This may have been true, as it is being bred in a most irrespon- 

 sible way, the fish being given all kinds of impossible food in order to produce it 

 quickly and cheaply. There is great competition in the sale of spawn, small 

 producers selling not directly to the users but to agents who advertise not only 

 hundreds of thousands but even a million or two as being their own product. 

 The producer does not obtain even 3 crowns (60 cents) per thousand in many 

 cases. Much of this has already been published in German special papers 



B. B. F. 1908— Pt 2—20 ngc 



