TROUT BREEDING. 51 



the wire into the required shape for clasping the egg. My 

 friend Christie, of Dutchess county, New York, with a 

 little instrument made by bending a thin brass wire into 

 the shape of a miniature spoon and lashing it to a small 

 wooden handle, removes the addled ova from his troughs, 

 he says, three times as fast as he can with pliers. For dip- 

 ping up young fish in the troughs, a small net is made by 

 bending a stout piece of wire into the shape of the letter D 

 for the frame, the ends of the wire being twisted together 

 on the convex side for the handle. The material used is 

 bobinett, or some light fabric sufficiently open. The net 

 need not be larger than an ordinary tea cup, and is used by 

 moving the straight side along the bottom of the trough. 



Taking the Spawn. In autumn when the fish work up 

 towards the heads of the ponds, and some of them enter 

 the raceways, it is time that the latter should be covered 

 with loose boards, and that persons should show themselves 

 as little as possible to the fish in that vicinity ; they can be 

 observed through the cracks between the boards. It will 

 be seen that the females only prepare the nests. This is 

 done by laying their sides against the bottom and rapidly 

 flapping their tails to displace the gravel, the males in the 

 mean while being engaged in a defensive war with rivals 

 and fish that are ready at hand to devour the spawn. 

 The peculiar motion of the female when she is about to 

 spawn, or has commenced, is a long, slow, sideway undula- 

 tion of the body from head to tail, resembling the moving 

 of a snake along the ground, although she does not pro- 

 gress, her vent being down in the excavation she has 



