242 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



each other." Perhaps they will not, but it is not pru- 

 dent to trust them. It is a risk, to say the least of it, 

 to keep fish of different sizes in a herd together, and, 

 being a risk, it ought to be avoided on principle. If 

 any one doubts whether actual mischief is done by it, 

 let him put five hundred trout of different sizes in a 

 pond for a year, and take them out at the end of that 

 time and count them over again. I think he will be 

 convinced. This is something that some trout growers 

 are altogether too careless about. They would not 

 think of keeping foxes and fowls together, even if the 

 foxes were well fed, yet they run equal risk with their 

 trout, and think nothing of it. I have seen more than 

 one trout pond where it was only a question of time 

 about one half of the fish going down the throats of the 

 other half. The fact is, trout are by nature incurable 

 cannibals, and they will always gratify their natural in- 

 stincts, to some extent at least, and will sometimes 

 carry them to a very destructive length.* 



My advice is, where you have different-sized trout 

 confined, to draw off your pond, or, if you cannot draw 



* I once had some full-grown trout, of the peculiarly large va- 

 riety found in Monadnoc Lake, confined in a small pond, and 

 one autumn had occasion to remove them, and put in a number 

 of small brook trout. The pond was a covered one, and the 

 fish were not particularly examined through the winter. In the 

 spring, when the cover was removed, it was found that more than 

 one half of the brook trout had disappeared. A thorough search 

 of the pond revealed a large and very fat Monadnoc trout hidden 

 in a dark hole, where he had been overlooked in the removal of 

 the others. He had eaten at least one hundred two or three 

 ounce trout during the winter. 



