CHAPTER III. 



CARE OF ALEVINS * OR TROUT FRY WITH THE 

 YOLK SAC ATTACHED. 



SOME morning when you go to the hatching boxes 

 with the nippers to look over the eggs, you will see 

 a long, thin, dark object, like a little splinter of wood, 

 lying among the eggs, which you will perhaps attempt 

 to remove with the nippers, wondering how it came 

 there in the night. The first touch of the nippers will 

 show it to be a living creature, and you will experi- 

 ence, if you are a beginner, the exquisite sensation of 

 knowing that your first trout has hatched. Soon 

 others will follow, only one or two to the thousand at 

 first, then more, till the hatching period reaches its 

 culmination, when the eggs will hatch in great quanti- 

 ties daily, after which the number will decline again 

 at very nearly an inverse ratio of progression. A 

 warm rain will accelerate the hatching very much, as 

 it does every other process of trout-life. More, per- 



* I am aware that this French word, "alevin," means young 

 fry ; but as there is no distinctive English word to designate a fish 

 during the period of the absorption of the yolk sac, and as the 

 word has been employed by at least one English writer (Francis, 

 Fish Culture, p. 99) in the present application, though not, I 

 believe, by American writers, I take the liberty to use it in this 

 treatise to distinguish the trout fry with the yolk sac attached. 



