28 TREATMENT OF EGGS. 



The strip which was placed across the troiis^h to raise the 

 water should then be removed. Care must be taken that 

 it be not removed so suddenly as to cause a rnsh of water, 

 which would carry most of the eggs away with it. Raise 

 the strip a little way from the bottom so as to let the 

 water run ont gradually, and when it is very nearly or 

 altogether at the proper level, the strip may be removed 

 entirely. Those who have a nursery attached to the 

 troughs place the earliest eggs in the lower end of the 

 trough, and keep placing them tow^ard the top, so that 

 the iish which are first hatched can run first into the 

 nursery without disturbing the others. We practice pla- 

 cing the eggs in the highest end of the trough fii-st, because 

 the eggs earliest placed, hatch out first, and the water 

 should be raised over them. If these first should be placed 

 at the lower end of the trough, in order to do this the 

 water must be raised over all the esfffs, if at the bes^in- 

 ning, by placing strips upon the nests in succession as 

 the eggs hatch out, the water is left running upon the 

 the unhatched eggs as usual. About five hundred may be 

 placed in each nest eighteen inches by fifteen inches. This 

 requires a word of explanation. Ten thousand or even 

 twenty thousand, could be placed in a nest of the same 

 size and would hatch out. In our own establishment we 

 place as many as ten or fifteen thousand in each square. 

 But as we wish the fish to live in the troughs a few 

 months after hatching, we must reduce the number, and 

 by taking out the eggs for sale we leave only five hundred 

 or one thousand in each square. The philosophy of the 

 thing is simply that the eggs require much less oxygen than 

 the fish. 



If the eggs are received from a Trout breeder, they should 

 be left as received until the troughs are ready for them. It 

 has sometimes occurred that the persons to whom we sent 



