134 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [April, 



As regards the practical treatment of the young fish, and the 

 question as to when they should be turned out into the stream, 

 as well as many other points, I must beg to refer again to my 

 little book on fish-hatching. 



Having had now two years' practical experience in hatching 

 fish, I bethought me whether this year I could not somewhat add 

 to the science of the matter, and have therefore instituted several 

 experiments as regarded the duration of the vitality of the milt 

 and ova, whether kept separate in bottles, or taken from dead fish. 

 This, I am convinced, is a most important point, and it may pos- 

 sibly lead to many practical results. The first experiment which 

 I tried was with a fish found dead in the river, having been 

 killed by a heron, and which had probably been dead twenty-four 

 hours. The eggs, which I impregnated with fresh milt, are now 

 in my boxes, and very few of them have died. 



I have also tried a series of experiments as regards keeping 

 the milt and ova separate in bottles for times varying from ten 

 minutes up to sixty-eight hours. The results hitherto have been 

 favorable, but I cannot be certain that fish will hatch out of these 

 eggs. Should however the experiment succeed, the important 

 practical bearing of this will at once be perceptible. Thus for in- 

 stance I impregnated at Worcester some salmon-ova fresh from the 

 fish, with trout-milt which had been sixty-eight hours in a bottle, 

 but very few of these eggs are as yet dead. Again, I brought 

 some salmon -eggs from Worcester and impregnated them with 

 fresh trout-milt at Mr. Samuel Gurney's, Carshalton. The eggs in 

 this case were twenty-nine hours old. 



It is generally a difficult matter to get the eggs, whether of 

 trout or salmon, properly operated upon, and then sent from a dis- 

 tance to the hatching-boxes ; it therefore occurred to me that if 

 I could possibly get the eggs from dead fish to hatch equally a& 

 well as those from live fish, it would save a great deal of time and 

 expense, as well as trouble. Fish therefore have been sent up to me 

 dead, packed in moss, and I have taken the eggs from them after 

 twelve hours, twenty-four hours, and eighty hours. It is almost 

 impossible to tell from any test that I know of, whether these eggs 

 have been properly impregnated. Time alone will prove this. If the 

 experiment succeed, we shall be able to write to our friends in the 

 extreme north of Scotland, or in the furthermost part of Ireland^ 

 and ask them to catch the fish and send them to London, where 



