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KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND CHARES. 
thought to be hereditary.^ It has also been attributed to the color of the flesh of its parent, 
and to the nature of the parent’s food.^ A correspondent of Mr. Buckland says that the tints 
cannot depend on the color of the parent’s flesh, because all grayling’s eggs have similar tints, 
and all graylings are white-fleshed.” 
Usually there are established breeding places to which the fish resort year after year unless 
changes of physical conditions occur. The Rangeley Lakes are extremely liable to such changes, 
which afi'ect both streams and shoals as spawning resorts. Ofttimes lowering of the water 
exposes the bars that most streams form in the still water at their mouths, thus preventing the 
entrance of trout, and of course shoals in the lake will be laid bare by the same means. In 
Forest and Stream of October 15, 1891, it was stated by a correspondent that in the Rangeley 
region the trout had begun to seek their spawning grounds as usual, “but,” using his words, 
“the spawning grounds are not found where they should be. On the contrary the water has 
far receded from them and they are only flats of dry gravel, in some instances many rods from 
water sufficient for trout to spawn in.” 
In the same paper of January 12, 1888, Captain F. C. Barker, a lifelong resident and observer 
of the Rangeley region wTote; “For years before the Union Water Power Company tripped up 
Nature and made the Mooselucmaguntic Lake over to suit themselves, one of the largest spawn- 
ing beds to be found anywhere in the Rangeley region was off the Bemis bar in this lake [Moose- 
lucmaguntic] and in not less than 8 feet of water, 40 rods from shore. Year after year they 
came there and did their spawning, but when the water was raised only 2 feet higher over their 
beds they abandoned it altogether.# This fact shows that they are particular about the depth 
of water even over their deep water beds, and by their maneuvering the last few years since the 
Power Company has been constantly changing the depth of water in the lakes, it is evident that 
Nature has not slighted them in an endowment of instinct and reason, and although they have 
been considerably disturbed for the last few seasons on their lake spawning grounds, they will 
at no distant day get settled right again, whether it be in stream or lake.” 
The trout begin to assemble on the shoals or in the streams, as a rule, during September, 
usually in the latter part of the month in the Rangeley region, but they are not at this time quite 
ripe. The run then continues well into October, sometimes later. The fish appear to go in 
schools and there seems to be a consensus of statements that the early runs are composed entirely 
of males. In his article regarding his observations in Kennebago Stream, Mr. J. G. Rich stated 
that the males came first, cleaning off the stones until they fairly shone in the sunlight. Then 
they seemed to leave all at once for a day or two, afterward returning with the females, but a 
curious fact was observed that while before the arrival of the females the beds were covered 
with males, afterwards there were but few of them. In his former article, he stated that there 
are always more males than females, sometimes three to one. 
' Mass. Fisheries Report, 1868, p. 31. 
“ Buckland, Fish Hatching, pp. 19, 20. 
