I 
Jan. 4, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
35 
the older generation of Test fishermen have 
often discussed and generally disapproved of 
this policy, and the object of the present article 
is to set forth without prejudice and weight the 
1 pros and cons of this comparatively novel de¬ 
parture. The first point which has struck most 
people is that the cost of such stocking must 
be very high, as compared with the more usual 
plan of introducing yearlings or even two-year- 
olds. The members of this club are, however, 
men to whom the question of expense is not an 
all-important one, and if they are as willing as 
they are able to pay the cost and are content 
with their sport, it may be conceded that no one 
outside their charmed circle should criticize 
their policy on these grounds. Certainly the re¬ 
sult has been that they have killed with dry-fly 
a very large number of fish of heavy average 
weight, and the total has apparently been an 
ever-increasing one from season to season. 
It is often said that the pisciculturist’s arti¬ 
ficially hatched trout reared in captivity is not 
as game and plucky as its naturally bred 
brother. I am assured by members of the club 
that their personal experience does not bear 
out this dictum, and that these trout, fed on 
horseflesh up to the month of March, show the 
same sport and play as hard as the native wild 
fish, even in the month of April in the same 
year. They tell me, however, that their fish 
from the stews are invariably white fleshed and 
are not equal to the old Test trout from a gas- 
tronomical point of view. Some short time 
since there was a mass of correspondence in the 
leading London daily paper on the destruction 
of the poetical side of angling by catching fish 
reared on so^gross a form of food as horseflesh. 
Surely, whether the trout breeder feeds his fish 
on liver, lights, fish meal, one of the many ad¬ 
vertised forms of fish food, or on the flesh of a 
horse can make no possible difference in this 
respect Thus the diminution of the poetical or 
romantic aspects of the sport must be deemed 
to apply to all trout or other fish reared by 
the pisciculturist and hand fed. It would, there¬ 
fore, appear that the only available means of 
satisfying the critics who lay stress on this point 
is to eschew the hatchery fish altogether. It 
follows that none but wild fish should be used 
for stocking purposes, and, as we know that 
wild fish transferred from one stream to an¬ 
other or moved from one portion to another 
part of the same river will never settle down 
and are inveterate roamers, the only alternative 
is to give up stocking altogether. The dire 
effect of this is too often and too painfully evi¬ 
dent to most -of us, and, as Euclid would sum 
up that problem, it “is absurd.” 
Whether these large trout fed up in rearing 
ponds will when turned into the river remain 
at or near the places where they have been 
liberated, or will, like the indigenous adult fish 
when shifted, take to wandering and nomad 
habits, is a moot point, and on this subject it 
is impossible to give a well-considered opinion 
without far more extensive and prolonged re¬ 
search and careful study spread over a great 
number of seasons and in a great number of 
rivers or streams. This is no doubt a very 
serious question, but in connection with this 
method of stocking there is a far more serious 
one. _ Has the introduction of these com¬ 
paratively tame trout a good or a bad effect on 
the strain of trout in the stream? What is the 
future _ of that _ proportion of them which are 
not killed during the first season? Do they 
assume the habits of the wild fish and are they 
well able to find their natural food after so long 
an experience of being pampered and fed once 
or twice a day by the keeper? If they revert 
quickly to the type of the native trout they 
are a decided acquisition; but if they do not 
teed freely and go off in condition, thus losing 
weight, their presence in the stream is most 
leleterious. They take up the space of healthy 
young fish, and their offspring must show signs 
of deterioration, while they themselves shrink 
antil they become long, lanky, lean, black, and 
inhealthy specimens. I fear that the result of 
«ny great extension of the plan adopted by this 
nub may be that the number of ill-conditioned 
ish will greatly increase, and the strain of trout 
n the Test will steadily decline from its present 
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