BROOK TROUT 



broad and deep, shaped somewhat like a bass. I have 

 never caught a native as large as that in the Beaver- 

 kill, so cannot compare the gamy qualities between 

 the California and the native. I have since caught a 

 brown trout that measured over twenty-two inches that 

 did not begin to " put up the fight " that the Cali- 

 fornia did. For a time a few rainbow trout were 

 caught, but they soon ran out. Then we occasionally 

 saw a trout that for a better name we called " hy- 

 brid," a pretty, bright-colored fish with small red 

 spots ; they also disappeared. Then, with a rush, came 

 the brown and German trout; I say with a rush be- 

 cause they have multiplied so fast that they now out- 

 number the native. Comparisons are generally odious, 

 but they are especially so when you compare a brown 

 trout to a native. In appearance the brown is scaly, 

 flat, greenish-yellow, irregular in form, bad eye, home- 

 ly all over. In the native the scales are invisible ; he 

 is gold and silver, round and symmetrical, and as 

 beautiful an object as lavish nature produces. In a 

 sporting way, the brown rushes at a fly and impales 

 himself and then holds back hard and dies limp and 

 wilted. The native, with a gleam and a glint, darts 

 for the fly, and unless the angler's eye and hand are 

 quick, he has taken the fly in his mouth, found it is 

 not food, spit it out, and is off, all in the twinkling of 

 an eye. When hooked he darts about, turns over and 

 over, is here, there, and everywhere. When netted, 

 he is still fighting, and keeps on fighting and kicking 



