89 



will be drowned by his struggles and by the weight of 

 the trap, for he can not survive under water very long 

 without rising to the furface for a supply of air. 



Water snakes can not do any damage to the large 

 trout, but will certainly eat all the little fish they can 

 get hold of. Even if they do no injury, they are not of 

 any advantage, and may as well be disposed of. 



Cray fish very seldom eat the young fish. They will 

 lie on the bottom, hidden in the mud, with the joint of 

 the claw wide open and ready ; then if any unfortunate 

 troutling passes within reach, his doom is sealed. Cray- 

 fish do much more mischief by their burrowing propen- 

 sities. They will make holes out of the pond, or from 

 one pond to another, through which the water escapes, 

 and very often the yonng fish also. The cray-fish is the 

 scavenger of the water, and it may be a question whether 

 a few of them will not do as much good, by disposing 

 of decaying animal matter, as they do harm, by destroy- 

 ing a few fish ; but they will eat spawn and the fry still 

 encumbered with the sac. The greatest tear of all fish- 

 raisers is that their fish will be stolen at night. A few 

 old Jogs, stones and branches of trees strewn on the bottom 

 of the pond, will make it impossible to drag the pond with 

 a seine. Catching them by hook and line is the only 

 means ; and if the fish are well fed daily, it will take 

 more time to catch a mess than thieves can' usually spare. 



Trout also find enemies in their own kind. The only 

 way to stop them from feeding on each other is to give 

 them plenty of other food. It may be as well, perhaps, 

 not to feed them on small fish, unless these are chopped 

 up fine, for the reason that trout soon accustom them- 

 selves to certain kinds of food, and will refuse anything 

 strange. If they get into the habit of feeding on small 

 fish, they will not be likely to make a distinction 



