STOCKING 395 



selves in crevices among the stones, darting out to 

 seize and devour any small crustaceans, mollusks, or 

 water-bred fly larvae, and at once returning to their 

 hiding-places for safety. Those that escape the 

 ravages of their numerous enemies (whether adult 

 trout, pike, or other coarse fish, and even larvae of 

 water beetles) as they gradually increase in size seek 

 places where the food on which they subsist is 

 plentiful. 



They continue growing in length and weight for 

 a number of years, probably as many as six or seven, 

 in rivers suited to them, until they have reached their 

 prime and attained their maximum dimensions. They 

 remain in their prime for a few years, and then 

 gradually begin to lose condition and weight until 

 old age creeps on and they get lanky and lean, their 

 heads appear longer in proportion to their bodies, the 

 teeth become more prominent, their colours dim, the 

 spots lose their brilliancy, and at the last phase of old 

 age they are dark or black in colour, and have com- 

 pletely lost the symmetry of form which is one of the 

 most beautiful and attractive attributes of a perfect 

 specimen of a chalk-stream trout. 



Mr. E. Valentine Corrie, whose experience of the 



Itchen is greater than that of 

 Mr. E. Valentine any other modern authority, 



Corrie's opinion. and whose knowledge of the 



river dates back to an epoch 

 anterior to that of any other living expert, has 

 treated the subject briefly in an article in the 



