374 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



sions reaching 96° in the shade, causing a great consumption of ice. 

 The following table gives the results : 



Remarks. 



Eggs taken from fish 10 p. m. on the 25th ; put 2,000 in hatcher at 

 10 a. ni. ; water in river 85°. 



Motion at daybreak. 



Fish livelier than any former ones; still no color in the eyes; 

 turned into the river at noon, 28th. 



As the increase in vitality could only be attributed to the increased 

 motion due to flowing three times the quantity of water through a 

 screen of less diameter than on the former trials, it appeared evident 

 that the failure of previous experiments was due to lack of motion, and 

 as all water had to be dipped from the receiving- barrel standing on the 

 floor into the reservoir-cask standing on the table, with a pail, that it 

 would require too much labor for one man to handle double the quantity, 

 and so would require at least four men to attend it, running night and 

 day, and another objection was the limited capacity of this small can. 



Here a valuable suggestion was made by my assistant, Mr. Charles 

 Bell, and a hatcher was made after his plan, which did its work per- 

 fectly. (See illustration.) It was in the shape of a funnel, with a tube 

 below like the others to connect the rubber supply-pipe. It had a depth 

 of ten inches and a diameter of twelve at the top, to which was soldered 

 a riin of wire-cloth one inch and a half high ; outside of this rim was a 

 flange with a tin rim, which had an outlet-pipe on one side. 



Near the bottom, where the cone was two inches in diameter, a screen 

 of tine brass wire was fastened. This passed all the water through a 

 screen of two inches, on which an egg could not rest. They were sent 

 up with a gentle motion in the center of the can, and separating equally 

 in all directions toward the wire rim, through which the flow was so 

 gentle that the eggs began to drop before they reached it, and, falling 

 on the sloping sides, gently settled toward the center, to be again lifted 

 before reaching the bottom. 



We exchanged our whisky-barrels for old casks that had been used 

 for catching rain-water, and moved from the hot piazza into the cellar, 

 where the temperature of the air averaged about 70°, making the experi- 

 ment without the use of ice, the temperature variation being very slight. 



