Nov. 16, rend 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
78) 

Aneters’ Club of New York. 
Tue last contest for the season was held in 
Central Park Nov. 9. A number of members 
vere present, but few entered the three handicap 
svents that were cast off. 


The first contest was for trout fly-casting, the 
yest cast in five minutes to count. The scores: 
Zest Allow- Score, 
Cast ance. Feet. 
|Villiam Tee WDEIOH es. ead vow we a c0 85 8 93 
King Smith 92 0 92 
. D. Smith 80 10 90 
Perry D, Brazer...cccgeccncesccccecs &t 5 4 89 4 
SMEs hacen coat sci0 verge ven cie'ee's 77 | 84 
| Salmon fly-casting, fifteen-foot rods: 
\Nilliam J. Ehrich...... 101 Perry D, Frazer......... 94 6 
| Bait-casting, 
lo count: 
half-ounce lures, best cast in five 
Best Allow- Score, 
| Cast. ance. Feet. 
|Perry D. Frazer— 
154 157 147 140 154 157 0 157 
[Edward F. Todd— 
100 *90 100 118 =: 106 118 34 152 
\Aarry Friedman— 
* 124 126 138 *95 138 12 4 150 4 
Wm, J. Ehrich— 
| 112 6 105 137 6 181 135 18376 14 151 6 
Edward B. Rice— 
131 = * *: ge sat 
Mr. Rice’s line broke in the last two casts. 
The records of members in different styles of 
casting during the year are given below. These 
are the best each man has accomplished in cast- 
ine for distance only, and on them the club han- 
dicaps are based. They are given without refer- 
ence to position, as no fair average can be struck 
lin so many styles of casting. 
| 15ft. Heavy 5oz. 4%0z. YWoz. 18ft. 
| Salmon Fly Fly Bait Bait Surf Salm’n 
| Rod. Rod. Rod. Rod. Rod. Rod. Rod. 
KR. Jo Held. > 91 92 84 175 131 6 190 99 
G. La Branche 98 91 87 162 104 185 100 
P. D. Frazer. .108 94 80 171 88 150 116 6 
|Edw. B. Rice. .. 94 79 167 117 160 105 
lV. Grimwood.101 90 88 23 83 2 108 
jW. J. Ehrich..101 90 74 150 104 atin A 
iM. He. Smiths s. 606 ... 165 97 oa Aen 
Tek, “Kirk: ews 88 84 129 Fars 104 
|R. Lawrence.. .. nas 79'6' 173 189 
King Smith... .. 102 78 o 
N. § Smithy. 5.7. 91 82 eee 
Chas Stepath.. .. 818 70 200 she 
Edw. Cave..... ne Safe 64 144 74 
H. Friedman.. .. Dae ¢ 152 110 
T. Brothert’n.. .. 7 Soc US e sen 
|H.. Henderson. .. 75 71 120 eta 107 
iW. G.(Geetyc. <: Ae Sap 124 109 RF; 
fe De Smith. ss: 87 3 78 eae oars 
W. McGuckin. 81 74 68 we FIRE. : wee 
i\D. Kennedy... .. a 71 Sete ialy atte 
Gy AS Bryanrsas: iss. ae ae : 89 
Edw. F. Todd. .. See 120 pee see 
C. G. Levison. .. 4c 83 124 100 
G “Af. Heller... =. 104 92 
T. D. Whistler .. O4A5T av , 
Gonzalo Poey.. .. ane 62 1306 96 
|A. J. Marsh... .. ee Agr bee 90 

Rainbow Trout in Ireland. 
Writinc of the mysterious disappearance of 
rainbow trout from Irish landlocked waters, 
Harry R. Douglas has this to say in the London 
Fishing Gazette: 
Rainbow trout are a faster growing species; 
they fight more fiercely when hooked (in this 
respect being much like sea trout—more often 
out of the water than in), and they are an ex- 
cellent table fish; but the fact which most anglers 
object to in the rainbow is that 6f their early 
| disappearance from even the best stocked waters. 
For the first two, or even three, years they grow 
very rapidly, and take the fly boldly and well, 
| but in their fourth or succeeding years they can- 
not be induced to look at the fly, and spoon or 
minnow is then the “only medicine.” After their 
fifth or sixth year they seem to disappear entirely. 
Can it be that, maturing much more rapidly, they 
also die sooner than Salmo fario? Our experi- 
ence in the north of Ireland with them has in- 
variably been on these lines—rapid growth and 
early disappearance. This, too, in lakes and 
reservoirs from which they have no means of 
escape seaward. In some of our Irish inclosed 
waters we anglers have been astonished at their 
rapid increase of weight, but have invariably 
found it followed by early disappearance, and 
so we don’t go five or six miles further on to 
fish for rainbows when we can get the good old 

brown trout nearer home, and in taking mood. 
Given a plentiful supply of natural feeding it is 
hard to beat Salmo fario for general sporting 
purposes. Is there anything known of the rain- 
bow’s natural habits that would explain this com- 
paratively early disappearance from _ inclosed 
waters? Is he a_ shorter-lived fish than the 
brown trout? 

Importance of Study of Fish Food. 
Juday in the. Bulletin of the United 
Zureau of Fisheries.] 
[Chancey States 
In considering the life conditions of a living 
organism, one of the most important factors to be 
taken into account is, naturally, the food. It is es- 
sential to know something about the quantity 
and kind of food required not only for existence, 
but also for the best and most complete develop- 
ment of the organism. In agriculture this ques- 
tion has received the attention of many investi- 
gators, and the results of their labors are ap- 
parent everywhere. To mention only two in- 
stances: We know that plants and soils have 
been studied to determine what plants are best 
adapted to the different kinds of soil; where 
certain food elements are lacking in a soil, fer- 
tilizers are added, or the soil is inoculated. with 
bacteria which will produce the desired results. 
In stock feeding much has been done to deter- 
mine the relative value and nutritive qualities of 
the various kinds of food generally employed, 
so that this industry may now be conducted along 
scientific lines. Comparatively little attention has 
been given to the food of our useful aquatic 
animals, however. The whole subject of aqui- 
culture, in fact, has been very much neglected. 
Analyses have been made and we have been 
told that our regular food fishes are very nutri- 
tious and make an excellent food for us, but our 
knowledge as to what produces this nutritious 
food is entirely too limited. The whole question 
of the relation of quantity and quality of food 
to the rate of growth and physical well being 
of fishes needs much more thorough investiga- 
tion than it has yet received. 
This neglect of aquiculture 
due to its slight economic importance, or per- 
haps it would be better to say to small possi- 
bilities of its great economic importance. It has 
been estimated that a body of water of average 
fertility will produce five times as much as an 
equal area of average land. Sweeney (1808) 
calls attention to the fact that a small fish pond 
(60 by 120 feet) in Indiana produced 1,000 
pounds of black bass and 250 pounds of yellow 
perch in fifteen months without being supplied 
with any artificial food. At the price of eight 
cents per pound he estimated that if the satival 
waters of Indiana had been relatively only about 
a tenth as productive as this pond, the fish pro- 
ducts would have been almost equal in value to 
the corn crop of the State in 1896, the year of 
this experiment, and a little more than twice the 
value of the wheat crop. Yet, in spite of the 
great possibilities of our natural waters from an 
economic standpoint, most of them receive little 
or no attention except annually or biennially 
when our legislators wrestle with the complex 
problem of devising laws for the protection of 
fish and aquatic birds. There is little doubt 
that if more attention was given to investigations 
relative to increasing the producing efficiency of 
our natural waters, many of the stringent protec- 
tive laws that now adorn our statute books would 
become superfluous. 
Like other living organisms, fishes are affected 
by both the quantity and quality of the food avail- 
able for them. The quantity of suitable fish food 
found in a stream or lake determines not only 
the number of fish that may be supported, but 
also the physical condition of those that do sur- 
is certainly not 
vive. When food is scarce a smaller number will 
be able to win in the struggle for existence, and 
those that do win will usually be poor and 
stinted in their growth. Fish epicures have per- 
sistently maintained that the flavor of a poorly 
fed fish is much inferior to that of one which 
has had an abundant supply of food. They also 
assert that the flavor is affected very much by 
the kind of food on which the fish feeds. It 
is stated, too, that the kind of food affects the 
growth of a fish very materially. Baird (1857) 
. contradictory evidence, 
cites an experiment in which young trout, pre- 
sumably the same number and of the same size, 
were placed in three separate tanks and were 
fed upon different kinds of food. The trout in 
one tank were supplied with worms; those in 
another were given live minnows; while those 
in the third were fed upon “water-flies.” The 
trout which subsisted upon worms grew slowly 
and had a lean appearance; those which were 
supplied with live minnows became much larger; 
“while those which had flies alone given to them 
attained in a short time prodigious dimensions, 
weighing twice as much as both the others to 
gether.” It is true, of course, that there is a 
very marked difference:in the rate of growth of 
trout, even under apparently the same food con- 
ditions. Trout culturists, for instance, find it 
necessary to sort the young trout of a pond at 
regular intervals after they are a few. months 
old, and separate the larger, precocious in- 
dividuals from the smaller, weaker ones in 
order to keep the former from _ preying 
upon the latter. But, in spite of this apparent 
there is little doubt that 
the great difference in the results obtained in 
the above experiment was due, in some measure 
at least, to the different kinds of food supplied. 
As long ago as 1653 Walton appreciated the 
importance of the quality of the feeding ground, 
for he says: “And certainly, as some pastures 
breed larger sheep, so do some rivers, by rea- 
son of the ground over which they flow, breed 
larger. trouts.”” Francis (1868) makes the asser- 
tion that “trout in one stream will be much 
larger, firmer, redder and better shaped than in 
others. This may, in a measure, be owing to the 
greater abundance of food, but I have every rea- 
son to believe that it proceeds quite as much 
from the kind of food that they are enabled to 
obtain.”’. Further on he says: “In lakes also it 
is a very common thing to find the trout in one 
lake large, bright and well fed, and in another 
very similar in appearance, and perhaps only a 
bare half mile distant from the other, they will 
be long, black and lean, with heads out of alt 
proportion to the thickness of the body. In an- 
other, probably but a similar distance from the 
first two, the trout will be abundant, but very 
small, though bright and well colored. To 
exemplify this he cites a group of small lakes 
in which he had fished and attributes the superior 
condition of the trout in the smallest lake of 
the group to the abunda ince and greater variety 
of the food found in it. Baird (1857) cites a 
similar difference between the trout of two 
streams, one of which is a tributary of the other, 
and he ascribes it to the great difference in the 
quantity and variety of the fish food which he 
found in the two waters. 
Thus it is evident that a knowledge of both 
the quantity and kinds of food found in a stream 
or lake is of very great importance when it comes 
to the question of trout culture. This, doubtless 
is true also of the culture of all other fishes, and 
this knowledge would be very valuable in the 
introduction of a species of fish into new waters. 
If we know the kind of food on which the fish 
thrives best, and if we also know the quantity 
and kinds of food available in the water to be 
stocked, then the problem of stocking the water 
can be attacked in such a way as greatly to in- 
crease the chances of success. Until such knowl- 
edge is acquired we must continue to experi- 
ment more or less blindly. 
Walton tells us that the trout “lies at watch 
for any fly or minnow that comes near him, and 
he especially loves the May-fly.” In the two and 
a half centuries since Walton wrote, relatively 
little has been added to his observations on the 
feeding habits of most of the trouts, though sev- 
eral writers, especially writers on trout culture, 
have commented in a general way upon the great 
variety of trout food. There is very little defi- 
nite information as to the quantities and propor- 
tions of the various component elements, how- 
ever. From general statements we learn that the 
food includes various: kinds of worms, all kinds 
of insects (both adults and larve), mollusks of 
one sort or another, crustaceans, small fish, fish 
eggs; in fact, almost anything that is digestible 
as well as many things that are not digestible. 
Trout are regarded as carnivorous from choice, 
but omnivorous in cases of necessity. 

