ON THE FOOD OF PISH. 129 



accounts for the fact of trout often rather falling off 

 and deteriorating in lakes into which minnows have 

 been largely introduced. Vegetable-feeding creatures 

 are rather what are required than such as feed on 

 other insects. The minnow is capital food for big 

 trout if thrown to them in a stew, or as a change 

 and variety where already abundance of food exists. 

 But where food is so scarce that the trout suffer 

 from not getting enough, to introduce minnows by 

 way of increasing the food of the trout is certainly 

 a fallacy. I know of several streams where the min- 

 nows abound to profusion, so much so as to be in 

 parts a nuisance to the fisherman, yet are the trout 

 wretched starvelings, seldom reaching three-quarters 

 of a pound, and always lean and lank and out of 

 condition. 



