64 Breeding Salmon and Trout. 



went round to the back of the house, where I had some small parr 

 in a box half full of gravel, with about three inches of water run- 

 ning over it. The moment he saw them he said: "They are 

 parr ; I sliould have thought you would have known that, as you 

 have been talking so positively about them." " Yes," I said, " I 

 know they are parr, and they came out of salmon eggs which were 

 hatched out in that little tray above them, and that is why I know 

 that they are not young trout ; unless you mean to say that trout 

 come out of salmon eggs, and salmon out of trout eggs." 



But perhaps I shall interest you more if I tell you of my own 

 experience, of my failures and successes, of the messes which I 

 made of myself and other people, and of the nuisance I must have 

 been to everybody, from the time I put my eggs into their boxes 

 till I carried off the young salmon and sea trout and placed them 

 in a nice little burn about half-a-mile above its junction with the 

 river. 



It was about five and thirty years ag'o that for the first time 

 in my life I found myself in a position to carry out my long 

 cherished scheme. At the back of the house was an old cistern 

 which at one time was filled from a pump and used to supply the 

 kitchen and back premises with water. A new water supply 

 having some time before been put into the house this cistern had 

 fallen out of use. It was discovered that it would still hold 

 water, and that a few slight repairs would put it in working 

 order. But I suspected that old pump and also the quality of 

 water in tha disused well. There were old drains suspiciously 

 near it, and I fancied that it had an odour not quite to be expected 

 from pure water, and a taste which had a certain richness about 

 it but was not altogether nice, so I connected the cistern by pipes 

 with a spring not far off, and at length filled my cistern, turned 

 on the tap, and found that I had a sufficient stream of water. 

 But would the spring keep up a good supply for three months 1 

 Suppose my pipes got frozen up, what then ? So I determined 

 to keep both sources of supply in working order. And it was 

 lucky I did so, for some four weeks before the eggs hatched out 

 the spring failed a good deal, and I was obliged to supply the 

 eggs, which up to that time had behaved remarkably well, with a 

 blended water. Some people say that a blended whisky is better 

 and more wholesome than that which comes from a single still, 

 and the blend of water did not disagree with the eggs. 



