TROUT. 15 
all obstacles, however, and hurry on to the bright 
brooks and pebbly shallows. The “redds” are 
selected where the streams are clearest and purest, 
where gravel prevails without the presence of 
sediment. It is interesting to watch the fish settle 
down to their domestic duties, and now much of 
their ordinary watchfulness seems to leave them. 
Although this facilitates observation, it also assists 
the fish-poacher in his nefarious task. When the 
female trout has scooped out a hole with her snout, 
she deposits the eggs at intervals in the sand. 
Whilst this is proceeding, with what care and 
attention her lord attends her! See how he rises 
and falls, now passing over, now under, and 
settling first upon this side, then upon that. 
Observe, too, how he drives off the young and 
unfertile fish which are ever lying in wait to 
devour the spawn. When the “milt” has been 
fertilised, the whole is covered over, there to 
remain till the eggs are hatched. The quantity 
of spawn deposited is such as to suggest that 
nothing which man could do would have any 
appreciable influence; and this is more readily 
understood when it is known that a trout deposits 
one thousand eggs, and a salmon upwards of nine 
hundred, for every pound of their live weight. In 
this connection, however, a vast number of enemies 
have to be taken into account. Ai single ill-timed 
