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."