Beeeding Salmon and Trout. 67 



but suddenly it dawned u}X)n me that my presence in the back 

 premises at all hours of the day hindered certain little innocent 

 flirtations with the butcher and the baker, &c.. when they called. 



From the time that the eggs were deposited in the boxes 

 there began a fierce struggle between nature and myself. Nature 

 seems to me to be supposed by some people to be a beneficent 

 power which holds a balance, and that if you do anything to 

 destroy the balance of nature you have committed a great sin. 

 Well, I suppose I had destroyed the balance of nature by putting 

 3000 eggs into so small a space, any way nature in many forms 

 fought against me. All went well for about a week. Then I 

 missed one or two eggs, or rather I should say found the skins of 

 those eggs in a corner. Careful examination with a powerful 

 magnifying- glass showed that the outer skin of the egg had been 

 pierced and the contents abstracted. I visited the boxes as often 

 as I could every day. Who was the culprit ? At last I caught a 

 creature about half an inch long with many legs and a cruel 

 looking pair of nippers for jaws clinging to one of the eggs and 

 apparently sucking it with much contentment. I promptly slew 

 him, and thus again destroyed the balance of nature. In fact, 

 before the conclusion of my experiments in rearing fish from the 

 egg, I quite made up my mind that one of man's great missions in 

 this world was to see that nature held her balance right. 



Suddenly 1 remembered that I had never boiled tiie gravel 

 before putting it into the boxes. There mig-ht be innumerable 

 ravenous insects hidden away in their dens amongst the stones 

 lying in wait to ravage m}' egg's. There was nothing for it but 

 to take them all out, boil the gravel, and put them back again. 

 Now the taking up something like 3000 eggs one at a time in a 

 little wire spoon is a tedious business, but I got through with it at 

 last, boiled the gravel for an hour in the copper, put it back in the 

 boxes, turned on the water, and fancied that I was at the end of 

 my trouble. But one morning soon after this I went out as soon 

 as it was light and found the water in the boxes as thick as pea 

 soup. There had been heavy rain in the night ; it had run off a 

 ploughed field into my spring, and was flowing from the tap in a 

 rich yellow stream. I cut off the water from the spring, and 

 when the cistern was empty pumped it full from the well. After 

 the clear water had been running for a while I found the eggs all 

 covered with yellow mud. Unless that were cleared off them not 



