TROUT
1945
TROY
troubadours' poetry consisted mostly of love-songs, though they sometimes touched upon the wars of the period or ventured to upbraid the evil customs of the times. At court-festivals there often were several troubadours, who engaged in verse-contests on subjects suggested by the ladies of the court. They nourished about from 1090 to 1290. Among the best-known troubadours were Richard the Lion-heart, Pierre D'Auvergne and Pierre Vidal, while the counts of Provence and of Toulouse, the kings of Aragon and of Castile, King Richard and Eleanor, queen of Henry II, are among their most illustrious patrons.
Trout, the name for a number of freshwater fishes belonging to the same family
as the salmon. The latter also is usually embraced under the name trout. They live in cold, clear streams and lakes, and are among our best food-fishes. They naturally are inhabitants of the northern hemisphere, but have been introduced into New Zealand and Australia. The common river and lake trout of Europe are black-spotted varieties, and reach a larger size than the American river-trout. Two kinds found in the United States are worthy of especial mention, the lake-trout and the brook-trout. The former is also called Mackinaw trout. It inhabits the Great Lakes and other lakes from New Brunswick to Montana and north to British Columbia and Alaska. It reaches a length of three feet or more. The brook-trout, which really is a charr, with its minute scales and beautiful red spots, is one of the most exquisite fish in appearance to be found anywhere, and it is unsurpassed as a food-fish. It ranges from Maine to Dakota, always in cold streams. Its length is from five to twenty inches, and it reaches an extreme weight of twelve pounds. In the Rangeley Lakes of Maine specimens have been caught and weighed that exceeded even twelve pounds. The trout west of the Rocky Mountains embrace the only black-
spotted trout native to the country. Some of them live in warmer streams than their eastern relatives. The rainbow-trout is black-spotted and approaches nearly to the European river-trout. The latter, with some other forms, have^ been introduced into the waters of the United States.
Trow'bridge, John Townsend, American novelist, poet and editor, was born at Ogden, N. Y., Sept. 18, 1827, and was partly educated at a classical school at Lockport, N. Y. Early in life he lived on a farm and occasionally taught school, and in 1847 ke went to New York and began to write for the press. He removed to Boston, contributed to magazines and journals, and took actively to authorship. His chief works are Cudjo's Cave, The South and Its Battlefields, the Jack Hazard series, The Drummer-Boy, The Tide-Mill series, the Toby Trafford series and the Start in Life series. He has also published The Vagabonds; The Book of Gola; The Emigrant's Story; and My Own Story.
Troy, a famous city of Asia Minor, the seat of the Trojan War, which forms the subject of Homer's great Iliad. It was situated, according to the poem, at the foot of Mt. Ida, in the northwestern part of Asia Minor, with a plain in front stretching for nine miles, called the Plain of Troy. The city was also called Ilium. Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, carried off Helen, the wife of King Menelaus, king of Sparta, and the most beautiful woman of her age. The Greeks, after spending ten years in collecting a fleet of 1,186 ships and an army of 100,000 men led by Agamemnon, drove the Trojans into their city, and after a siege of ten years the city was destroyed. In the tenth year of the siege occurred the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles which is the subject of Homer. It so weakened the Greeks that they were driven back to the sea. Vergil in The Mneid tells the story of the wooden horse filled with warriors, left before the walls of Troy by the apparently retiring Greek army, which was drawn into the city. The warriors, thus introduced, opened the gates to the returning army, and Troy was taken by stratagem. After the fall of Troy a new city sprang up, called New Ilium, which occupied the site of Hissarlik, about four miles from the mouth of the River Mendereh, now believed to be the Scamander of The Iliad. This spot has been excavated by Dr. Schliemann, and the remains of a great city found, thought to be those of ancient Troy. See ACHILLES, ^ENEAS, AGA< MEMNON, HELEN, HOMER, ILIAD, ILIUM, MENELAUS, ODYSSEY, SCHLIEMANN and ULYSSES. Consult Schliemann's Troy and Its Remains.
Troy, N. Y., county-seat of Rensselaer County, on Hudson River, six miles north of Albany, is at the head of steamboat
