*5 



turned out in our barren waters at this season of the 

 year, for want of that natural food which I believe 

 is just as necessary to insure their proper and 

 healthy growth as milk is for babes. All fish-breeders 

 full well know that with all the care and the best 

 artificial food we can furnish, only a limited number 

 will survive this critical period, simply because they 

 are found to eat, if anything, food unsuited to their 

 age and condition. Let us now inquire, for a 

 moment, what are the natural conditions of these 

 fish in their native haunts. We find them spawning 

 during the month of October, upon the rocky and 

 gravelly shoals of the waters they inhabit. In the 

 northern latitudes, where this kind of fish most 

 abounds, we find, within a few weeks after the spawn- 

 ing season, the water frozen over, and thus the eggs 

 lie in ice-water, which retards their hatching until 

 about March i st, when they come out, having somewhat 

 the appearance of a tad-pole. In this condition they lie 

 among the rocks and pebbles, well protected from 

 the depredations of their enemies, until about the first 

 of May, when their sac having been absorbed, the 

 waters are sufficiently warm for the appearance of 

 the animalculae upon which the young fish are now 

 become dependent. Thus, from natural considera- 

 tions, from the laws regulating an universal hygiene, 

 and also from the confirmation that the view has, in 

 the testimony of sailors, who report that lew dead 

 fish are even found in the waters, we judge that 

 nature's method is the only true one, and that it 



