THIS well-known and greatly prized game fish is found between the parallels of latitude 50 degrees north and 36 degrees south, though in Labrador, in latitude 54 degrees, and in the Appalachian mountain ranges as far south as the northern border of Georgia and South Carolina, it has been taken in abundance. Northwestern Minnesota is its northern limit, and it is only occasionally caught west of the Mississippi River, except in a few of its tributaries. Specimens weighing seventeen pounds have been taken, the largest being found in the Nipigon River, in Ontario, and on the north shore of Lake Superior, where the seventeen-pound specimen referred to was caught. It is found in the large lakes and in the smallest ponds, the tiniest brooks and the largest rivers. The Nipigon River is forty-five miles in length and has a depth, in places, of from one hundred to two hundred feet.

Although a bold biter, the brook trout is wary, and usually requires all the skill of an experienced fisherman to capture it. The bait commonly used to entice it to bite is artificial or natural flies, minnows, crickets, grubs, grasshoppers, fish spawn, or the eyes or cut pieces of other trout. Its period of spawning is from September to the last of November, and it begins to reproduce its kind when about two years of age, when it measures some six inches in length. In the early summer the trout sports in rapids and swiftly running water, and in midsummer finds a retreat in deep, cool, and shaded pools. In August and September the females gather about the mouths of gravelly brooks, whither they resort to make their spawning beds.

With age the habits of the trout change. When young they associate in schools and play together constantly, usually choosing parts of the brook where the bottom is muddy, in which, if startled suddenly, they bury themselves for safety. This does not often occur, however, as they prefer any little projection that juts out over the water where they can hide until the danger is past. As they grow older they separate, and each one chooses his own particular hiding-place, the larger trout taking the deepest holes and largest projections and leaving the smaller relations to shift for themselves. The older they grow the wiser and more wary they become, hence the necessity of considerable skill to land a wary old trout. Angle-worms are considered the best bait for trout, but in the spring, after the usual freshets, which wash vast numbers of worms and insects into the water, they bite better at the more tempting bait of a fly.

Practice alone will enable one to catch this wary beauty. One must know not only how to catch it but where to find it, and some knowledge of entomology is essential at the very beginning. It is desirable to have some acquaintance with the insects that live in the water, under the water, and over the water, and whose habits in great part influence the movements of the fish.

Miss Sara J. McBride, an accomplished naturalist of Mumford, New York, in an essay published some years ago in the Forest and Stream, taught the lesson of entomology we have referred to, as applied to the angler's purposes, in the following words:

"There is a large order of insects that live the first stages of life in water, where for weeks, months, in some instances years, they hide under stones; carve an abiding-place in submerged driftwood; feed on decaying vegetation in lazy, inert masses; burrow in the earth beneath the current; weave together bits of wood, gravel, stones, and floating debris, forming retreats that surround them as they swim or daintily walk; spin of silken thread individual domiciles that they guard from intruders with the valor of soldiers, or bodily and singly dash out in the current, swimming with agile rapidity. These are all fish food. But it is only when they assume the perfect form, when they cast aside their aquatic nature, and with gossamer wings float in the air, that they are of interest to the fly-fisher—as he seeks to deceive the finny tribe with their imitations, made of feathers, tinsel, and mohair. Insects are enfeebled at all changes in their life, and at each successive moult, when the pupa case is broken, too weak to keep guard, they flutter and rest on the water an instant before flitting away. At this instant many are seized by the wary fish. Insects leave the water mornings and evenings, particularly the latter, rarely at midday, never during rain storms or heavy winds. It is at these times, when they are leaving the water, their imitations are used to most advantage. It is that insect floating off into a new element that the fish are watching and waiting to feed on. At other times you may cast with success your favorite 'brown hackle' with its golden ribs and steel backbone—the bland professor, the modest queen of the water, or the grizzly king with his gray locks and flaming sword. Things which resemble nothing in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth—why fish take these, whether from curiosity, or by way of dessert, no one perhaps will ever know, not fully understanding the nature of the fish. But there is one thing we do know, that when the countless myriads of these tiny creatures are entering a new life in untried regions, the favorite flies will be thrown in vain. The fish will regard with contemplative indifference every other lure but a close imitation of that particular insect.

"One evening we sat on the bank of a creek, bug net in hand, watching the trout and the birds of the air feeding on a neuropterous insect that is constantly repeating the cycle of its life,

The stream was in eddying whirls of ripples from the constant 'leaping' of the trout. Now and then one bolder than the rest would dash out of the water its full length to seize its departing prey, which sometimes escaped to become a precious morsel in the mandibles of a watching bird. Many of these insects would float on with the current, never able to unfold their soft, creamy-wings, and become easy victims. On the opposite bank was an angler. For an hour in patience he whipped the stream, now up, now down, with 'red hackles,' 'white hackles,' 'black hackles;' he changed fly after fly in vain. At length he folded his rod and passed away among the shadows of the night, without so much as a bite, without so much as a chance to tell of the big fish 'hooked' but lost.

"There are many aquatic insects double brooded, or under favorable circumstances, of a succession of broods. Imitations of such can be used throughout the summer months. There are many insects that do not breed in water, yet are successful baits. As a rule, insects that appear in large numbers, whether they belong to land or water, are the proper ones for imitation. Solitary specimens, although dear to the heart of an entomologist, are eyed by the fish with haughty indifference. Water is a great attraction for all insect tribes. The banks of streams constitute the favorite hunting-ground for insect collectors, where they compete with the fish, those practical entomologists, in collecting. Some insects come to drink, others in search of prey, for insects are cannibals, while very many are the sport of the winds. It is probably the bright sheen of the water that draws the fluttering moths into its depths. All nocturnal insects have a strange infatuation for glistening light. What the attraction is for some is beyond the ken of mortals. A TipulidÆ bibri marci, or in piscatorial language, the hawthorn fly, an insect whose life is beneath the surface of the earth eleven months of the year, comes crawling, creeping out of the ground on warm June mornings appareled in new livery. After resting awhile on low herbage, all, as if guided by one impulse, fly to the nearest stream. We have kept those insects for weeks in confinement, and they would neither eat nor drink. But every morning for hours they congregate over streams. Keeping time with the ripple of the water, they hold a May dance; darting hither and thither, occasionally touching the water to go down the current, or else down the throat of a fish.

When these bright creatures are holding high carnival above, the trout positively refuse other enticement. The larvae of moths is a favorite fish food, and consequently successful bait. Hibernating larvae are drawn from their retreats in warm spring days, and continue the pilgrimage they commenced the previous fall. In their wild journeyings on and on before spinning the pupa shroud, they fall victims in attempting to cross streams.

Hairy caterpillars feeding on the trees are blown off by the winds, or their silken thread is broken, as they hang under the leaves in shelter from the rain. Imitations of those known to the American by the familiar term of hackles are to be used after winds or during rain storms; also that compromise between larvae and image known as the hackle fly. No bait has ever been used that has given as general satisfaction as this anomaly. It is a common remark that fish will not bite before rain. The reason is probably that food is never offered at such times. The natural instinct of the insect forbids its leaving the water or flying abroad if rain is threatening. The breathing-pores are situated on the outside of the body near the insertion of the wings. They are soon clogged and closed up by the water, and the down washed from their bodies; their wings draggle and become powerless, and they suffocate flying in midair. This is the reason winged insects on touching water drown so easily. Insects do not invariably appear at the same times. A cold spring will retard their development for months, while an unusually warm spring or summer will hasten their appearance. Insects in the water are the most affected by changes of temperature. Any guide for a fly-fisher would be almost useless unless this important point were remembered. English works can never become positive authorities for our climate. Insects which appear there in vast quantities are rare here, and vice versa. Some that are single-brooded there are doubled-brooded here. Some that appear there in one month visit us at another, while we have many alluring baits here that the classic waters of the British Isles would regard with bewildering amazement."

In fishing with worm for bait, good fishermen say, it is better to choose a still, cloudy day indicating rain, as the fish are then hungry for insects. An expert trout-fisher will begin at the head of a stream and fish down it, always keeping some distance from the bank to avoid alarming the fish.

The speckled beauty, as the brook trout is universally called, as a food fish is by many considered unsurpassed, the flesh being firm and well flavored. Others, however, regard it as only an occasional delicacy.