BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 40") 



spawners with two milters, and this is that people allege to have ob- 

 served that if four spawners are associated with two milters, the female 

 fish preponderate too much among the young fry, and that buyers had 

 made complaint at being served with too many females. It is difficult 

 to refrain from a smile when reading of such strange notions. I cannot 

 but state here as my opinion — and probably many of my readers will 

 share my view — that if in the instance referred to the first pond had 

 been stocked in the proportion of two spawners to one milter, the roe 

 of one of the female fish would certainly have been impregnated, and 

 as many young fish would have been produced as in the other case, and 

 that, moreover, we could not exclude the possibility of the one milter 

 also impregnating the eggs of the second spawner, thus producing twice 

 the quantity of young fish. Aside from the fact that two spawners, 

 equal in every respect, will produce more eggs than one, I can only 

 imagine one other reason which could have led our old pond culturists 

 to adopt their favorite method, viz, that the male carp desires to have 

 his choice of females, and that if he fiuds none with which he chooses to 

 mate, he will remain aloof. Could our old pond-culturists have been 

 guided by considerations like these! I shall not venture to answer this 

 question. 



From all that hasbeen said, it will appear evident that, even if strongly 

 convincing reasons speak in favor of more milters than spawners in 

 each set, reasons which even decide me to declare in favor of this method, 

 there may possibly be some very cogent reasons for the other method 

 so that this part of the problem cannot, without the most exhaustive 

 and thorough experiments, be considered as definitely settled. This is 

 certain, however, as it has been held from time immemorial that small flat 

 ponds are the most profitable for spawning ponds. But, unfortunately, 

 such ponds cannot be found everywhere ; and even when there are such 

 they are often so located that they cannot be stocked with spawning 

 fish without great risk of their being stolen. The small pounds are gen- 

 erally in villages or quite near to them. Other ponds there are, which, 

 although small enough, cannot be used as spawning ponds on account 

 of their being too deep or having very steep banks, or because their 

 water is too cold, or the forests surrounding them too dense, &c. I 

 can testify from my own experience that in a large pond-farm which 

 I had to superintend a number of years ago, I had, comparatively speak- 

 ing, a very large number of small ponds, which, on account of one or the 

 other of the above-mentioned defects, could not be used as spawning- 

 ponds, so that I had to use larger ponds. The same experience has 

 been had upon another large pond-farm with which lam well acquainted. 



Under these circumstances, it would be profitable, and therefore ad- 

 visable — considering the greater safety offered by small, flat ponds — to 

 specially construct such ponds in the most favorable locations which 

 can be secured. But as it is not only the object of the pond-culturist 

 to obtain a large number of young fish (at any rate as many as are 





