194 PROPAGATION OF TROUT IN AMERICA. 
has employed to stock the Snedicer Preserves with both salmon and 
trout ; and the roe was hatched at the Artists' Buildings in Tenth street, 
in Croton water, from whence they were transferred to the Oonnetqaot 
Preserve below Islip. Although many persons contend that the pair 
turned into the South Bay will never return to Mr. Johnson's preserve, 
1 doubt them. They perhaps have not taken into account the fact that 
blue fish, Spanish mackerel, boneta, and sharks, do not inhabit the bay 
during either spring, fall, or winter, and these are the migratory seasons 
of the salmon. Of trout, tliey have been taken in nets in the South 
Bay several miles from shore. Daniel Webster contended that the trout 
of Marshfield Creek made regular trips to sea, and improved greatly by 
their marine voyages. We never doubted it for we know that trout 
which have access to our bays and inlets from the ocean are fatter and 
higher flavoured, which is justly attributed to their food in salt water 
being shrimps, small fish, and the eggs of the numerous tribes of the 
deep. 
It has been proved by experiment that, of salmon, not more than one 
in a thousand hatched naturally arrive at maturity. Of trout, it is pro- 
bable that double that proportion mature, for the present experiment of 
propagating trout and salmon side by side in Australia proves that trout 
thrive best, and are what Lord Dundreary would call " the most wobust." 
But the ranks of the speckled beauties in our trout streams and ponds 
have been decimated, and require filling up. This cannot be done 
without the assistance of art. Let us suppose that a pond which is 
supplied by streams suitable for spawning is stocked with five hundred 
trout, each of which weighs a pound. In the course of one season they 
will deposit 250,000 ova. Granting that a considerable portion of these 
are hatched, is it ever found that a fiftieth or a hundredth part of the 
whole arrive at maturity 1 Far from this being the case ; the number 
' of trout will continue almost the same for years, without any perceptible 
increase. The reason is plain. As soon as the fry are hatched they are 
exposed to the attacks of the parent trout. Within the limits of the 
reservoir there is not the remotest chance of their ultimate escape. It 
is true, if the fingerlingsknew enough, they might ascend the tributaries 
of the preserve to shoals where the parent trout could not follow ; but 
they do not know, and man being placed over the kingdom of inferior 
animals should preserve them for his own good. Trout or salmon 
which spawn in the natural waters, generally go to the heads of the 
streams during the Fall floods and deposit their spawn : when the waters 
subside the ova is sometimes destroyed by being left on dry land. 
Other fish deposit their spawn and cover it on prior beds of spawn. 
Others spawn in the current of the stream, and a freshet carries it down 
the current as food for all the inhabitants below. In other cases the 
female trout makes her spawning-bed, and deposits and covers up the 
ova, while the male trout is down at the foot of the pool guarding it 
from the incursions of an army of water-guerillas. Sometimes the 
