1896.] on Fish Culture. 45 



from sediment and pollution, we find tliat we have no trouble with 

 the fish in this stage. A little later on, however, the fi.sh-culturist's 

 troubles begin. The fish begin to feed. The umbilical sac is almost 

 absorbed, and we find the fish rising in the water. Hitherto they 

 have remained pretty much on the bottom, but now we find them 

 rising in the water, heading the current, and to all intents and pur- 

 poses looking out for food, showing that they are hungry. When we 

 see this we have to begin to feed them. Naturally they have very 

 little mouths, and the difiiculty is to find food which is sufficiently 

 small for the little fish to swallow. We have managed to get a 

 good many substances in the shape of artificial food upon which 

 they can be fed, but we find that if we go to nature and take a leaf 

 from her book we can get very much better food in the shape of 

 entomostraca, which can be grown in very large numbers, and upon 

 which the fish thrive very much better than they do on the artificial 

 foods. 



It is very natural that with such delicate beings there should 

 be great losses when left to nature, and here is one of the great 

 advantages of fish culture. We can save 95 per cent, of the eggs 

 laid down, whereas if left to nature probably not more than 25 per 

 cent, would ever hatch. Frank Buckland estimated that one egg, or 

 " not one egg," I think he said, in every thousand produced a mature 

 fish, and I do not think that he was far off the mark ; so that we 

 see that there is an enormous loss continually taking place in our 

 rivers and streams. It is called a " loss," but I would rather say 

 that these little fish are disposed of by natural means. There is 

 no real loss. We do not recognise such a thing as " loss " in 

 nature. The fish are disposed of by natural means. Nature has 

 arranged so that the enormous numbers of eggs which are deposited 

 should not hatch. We can see that if they hatched the result would 

 be that there would be far more fish in the rivers than the rivers 

 could possibly contain, and therefore there is this great destruction 

 of the ova of the fish in their early stages ; whereas, by artificial fish 

 culture, we can save a very large percentage, so that by cultivating 

 the water and making it capable of holding a larger quantity of fish 

 than nature would allow, a great deal may be done, and the supply 

 of fish may be largely increased. 



What happens to the salmonidas of which I have been speaking, 

 happens on a much larger scale to a great many of our marine fishes, 

 and man has a power given Lim of counteracting this great loss. 

 We have now some marine hatcheries, and a very good work is being 

 begun in those hatcheries. I was at one at Dunbar a little while ago, 

 and saw the work which is being carried on there by Captain 

 Dannevig. He has a series of boxes for hatching ova, and, unlike 

 the boxes which I have here for hatching ova which require to be 

 kept perfectly still, these pelagic ova, accustomed to the motion of 

 the waves, would not do when they were kept in boxes in a state of 

 quiescence, and therefore by means of machinery the boxes are made 

 to move up and down, and the eggs are constantly being slightly 



