TROUT BREEDING. 27 



creek, in New York, to the middle of March.* When they 

 have a choice of spawning-grounds, trout will seek shallow 

 water of gentle current, with pebbly bottom, or the lower 

 end of a ripple where the water is almost still. To occupy 

 such places, they will run out of deeper water either up or 

 down stream, leaping over an obstructing log, or wriggling 

 through water half the depth of their bodies, the males 

 preceding the females some days. At this season the 



* About the 1st of May (of this year) I visited Mr. A. J. Beau- 

 mont, near New Hope, Pa. , for the purpose of inaugurating a trout- 

 breeding establishment. He has a spring which supplies the power 

 for a paper and grist mill, the water flowing in a raceway about 

 five hundred yards to tlie mill site. This race is well stocked 

 with trout, and the water is of such unvarying temperature that the 

 fish know no summer or winter. On taking a few fish with the fly 

 I found that more than half of the females presented the slender 

 body and peculiar appearance of fish that had lately spawned. When 

 I mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Beaumont he informed me that 

 only three days before, while cutting water cresses at the spring, his 

 son removed a stone that lay at a slight angle with the bottom, 

 and found beneath it a large number of trout spawn. On examining 

 the ova he could not detect, with the naked eye, any formation of 

 the young fish. The conclusion to be deduced from this and similar 

 facts which have come under my observation, is that the more equa- 

 ble the temperature of tlie water, the longer will the time of spawn- 

 ing extend into the spring of the year, and that trout taken from cold 

 forest streams, where they spawn only in the fall, and placed in 

 unvarying spring water ponds, will, in successive generations, breed 

 later and later, until they take on the habit, in this respect, that 

 prevails with the trout in Mr. Beaumont's raceway and in Caledonia 

 creek. \\ 



