St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1910-03-16

ificial fly. But who knows whether he
will not be the first one in the pool again
to get canght on a hook?
The angler on the bank has been doing
some thinking about the good fight this
trout made, and he can tell you about
another trout which once got on his
hook but which slipped back into the
water when he was taking him of.
However, his eye was torn out and
remained on the hook. The angler had
been told that the eyes of fishes make
good bait; so he just left this eye on the
hook and cast it into the pool. Soon
he had another bite and when he landed
a small trout he found it was the very
fish which had lost its eye. We shall
have to excuse the trout for being so
greedy as to bite it's own lost eye on the
ground that he was a little fellow and
did not know any better. I tell you
about it in order to assure you that
fishes apparently suffer little or no pain
when hooked.
Now where did we leave our trout?
Oh, yes, he was hiding under the bank.
Well he does not mind the torn jaw
much and soop looks about for his
friends. One by one the school assemblies
again and Mr.. Trout finds his mate.
The water in the little brook is grow
ing cooler every day and finally, when
banks are full, the whole school of trout
moves up stream. A heavy rain, raising
the water in the stream, is always a
signal for the fish to move on.
The two in which we are interested are
an odd-looking pair. Mrs. Trout is now
five years old and weighs pound. She
was born in this brook and did not grow
very fast until two years of age. Then
she found herself in a pond which had
been made by fisherman.
There were deep places in the pond
much like the pools in the brook, and
there were shallow places where pond
lilies and water plants grew. Here, too,
the water was warmer in the summer
time and many insects laid their eggs in
it or on the plants and these kept hatch
ing out. Among these were caddls
worms, which turn into flies and rise to
the top of the water and fly away-if
they can-before, a fish catches them.
You will find some more about them far
Their on. ALI these insects and their eggs
or larvae make food for the fishes.
So Mrs. Trout had more room and
more food and as result she had grown
into fine, large trout when five years
old.
Mr.. Trout is only a little over two
years old and weighs only qnarter of a
pound. It is really funny to see how
fierce he can be when other trout come
near his mate. Some of them are big
fellows, but he drives them all away.
He has lived the most of his life in the
brook, where he must exercise a good
deal in order to get a living. As
result he is more active than the lazy big
fellows who loafed around in the still,
deep waters of the pond.
When Mr.. Trout is not fighting away
other fish he busies himself in making
love to his mate. He does this by Giro
ling about over and under her. Some
times he bites her gently about her
throat as if trying to caress her just as
child does to his mother.
They both like to rub their sides on the
gravellv bottom, and, with an occasional
firt of the tail, they make the pebbles
they rest becomes hollow, and quite
clean and bright compared with its
surroundings. Perhaps it is not known
that many kinds of nshes have nests.
This clean, bright spot followed out in
the gravel by Mr. and Mrs. Trout is
their nest. In nest building the trout
family prefer a hard and gravelly
bottom where they brush off all moss or
other water plants, and any loose sticks
and stones, Sometimes they cannot
find such a good place, and may have to
until they reach gravel, making a nest
six or eight inches deep, surrounded by
beautiful green water plants. In lakes,
where the bottom is mostly fine sand,
they have been known to make nests a
foot deep by rubbing away the sand, the
pebbles settling to the bottom.
At first Mr.. and Mrs. Trout work on
their nest only at night, but later on
they become more absorbed and remain
on the nest during the day as well.
Usually as they lay side by side their
heads are looking in opposite direc-
tions-perhaps the more easily to watch
the approach of enemies. At this time
almost every living thing is an enemy
ready to eat the eggs that Mrs. Trout is
about to lay.
One evening, when rubbing over the
gravelly nest, Mrs. Trout lays lot of
amber colored eggs called spawn.
Then Mr.. Trout swims over the nest,
and expels a liquid called milt, which
comes like a fash, and instantly spreads
over the nest, giving a milky hue to the
water, and then rapidly vanishes as it
follows the current down stream.
All the eggs which are touched by the
milt are made complete. Although
there is more than enough mi1t to reach
them all, much of it is carried away by
the current. so that many eggs are left
untouched.
This process in nature is called fertili-
cation, and the fertilization of fish eggs
may be compared to that of flowers.
The egg is to the fish what the seed is
to the plant. The seed of the plant is
not complete until it has been united
with the pollen. Bees and other insects
when in search of honey shake off the
pollen and carry it from one flower to
another, thus bringing it into contact
with the seed. The milt of the fish cor
responds to the pollen of the flowers and
it is carried to the eggs by the water in
stead of by insects.
Mrs. Trout does not lay all the eggs
at one time and it is several days before
the last egg has been deposited and she
is ready to leave the nest.
From the moment that Mrs. Trout