"Midnight!" he echoed faintly, catching but the last word. "Is that the reason it has grown so dark? Ah, that Shanghai over there will get ahead of me; that'll never do," and the dying old boaster, drawing himself up stiffly, a feeble "_cock-a-doodle_" rang out on the air, but the final "_doo_" stuck in his throat, a gasp, a shiver, a swaying to and fro, and the long, slender toes of Mr. Rooster were presently turned toward the sky. [Illustration: BROOK TROUT. CHICAGO: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.] BROOK TROUT. _Salmo fontinalis._ 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.