SILVER TROUT. 
71 
Food. 
There are no early notes regarding the food excepting that implied in the mention of baits 
used in catching the trout. 
Miss Dwight told Mr. Cheney (1. c.) that she had observed that the fish generally were 
growing deeper in the body since the introduction of the freshwater shrimp, and that the fish 
then caught were found to be filled with the introduced food. 
Mr. Robinson’s letter to Dr. Evermann stated that the stomachs contained two kinds of 
food; one was a shrimp about one inch long and the other apparently a dark greenish-brown 
vegetable material. He said, however, that in the spring they appeared to be feeding upon 
larval mosquitoes or some other dipterous insect. Mr. Mason (1. c.) stated that they were 
feeding upon “the small black flies.” 
Abundance. 
Mr. Mason said (1. c.) that some eighty years ago persons living on the lake used to send 
their boys out to catch a pailful for their hogs, which could be done in a very short time. Within 
thirty years there were large numbers caught through the ice, but this was prohibited later on. 
He said that up to perhaps thirty years ago he had seen cartloads on the “spawning bed,” 
where trout were taken in large numbers and of good size; in recent years, however, they had 
decreased greatly in numbers and that former State Commissioners had advanced the opinion 
that the small perch which abounded there were destroying the trout. 
Size. 
Bigelow stated that they varied in size from one quarter of a pound to five pounds, but those 
taken were seldom less than one quarter or over three pounds. The two specimens figured 
by Carman were, respectively, “young” 7^ adult 12j inches long. The fish on exhibition at 
a sportsmen’s show previously referred to were stated by Mr. Cheney to have been from two 
to four ounces in weight, but he was informed that fish netted for spawning purposes have 
weighed between two and three pounds each, and once one was taken weighing seven pounds. 
Mr. Robinson informed Dr. Evermann (1. c.) that the fish caught in 1912 averaged a little 
over 9 inches in length, the largest being 11 and 12 inches, and there was one caught which 
he did not see that was reported to weigh one and a quarter pounds; also that larger specimens 
had been seen on the spawning grounds. 
Mr. Mason says that the size at present is much smaller than it was years ago, and it is 
seldom that one is caught weighing over one and one half pounds. The average is from one 
