Bkeeding Salmon and Trout. 69 



about half as thick as a cedar pencil were placed parallel to 

 one another about an inch under water, and at such a 

 distance apart that the eggs could not fall between them. 

 The spotted eggs in the boxes were then carefully picked 

 out in my little wire spoon and placed on the rods. The water 

 was turned on and ran through the tin tray, the overflow 

 falling into a small bath below. The water Avas kept at from 

 forty-five to fifty degrees. From the day on which the eggs were 

 placed in the warmer water the spread of the white matter under 

 the outer membrane was arrested, and in time became detached, 

 it was never absorbed, but floated about freely inside the skin. 

 A very large proi^ortion of the eggs hatched out, there were about 

 two hundred of them, every one of which would have perished if 

 left in the cold water outside. I used to watch the eggs through 

 a strong magnifying glass. As they came near the time of hatch- 

 ing it was most interesting to watch the development of the little 

 fish inside the egg. The eyes could be plainly seen, and a dim 

 shadowy outline of the fish. After a while you could see them 

 move and turn a sort of somersault inside their prison. At last I 

 saw one look at me (I beheve he would have winked if he had had 

 any eyelids), give a violent struggle, burst the outer membrane, 

 swim round the tray, and sink to the bottom between the glass 

 rods. So my first little salmon were born. 



There are three things which are absolutely necessary to 

 success in rearing fish from the egg : — 



1st. Well fertilized eggs. 



2nd. Pure water. 



3rd. Infinite care and pains about details. 

 Every egg that shows signs of going wrong must at once be 

 removed from the boxes. If it be left to perish you soon see a 

 sort of fungus begin to grow on it, and the moment that fungus 

 touches another egg it will be infected, and in a few days you will 

 find all the eggs bound together in a mass in the fungus and dead. 

 I have perhaps wearied you with detail more than I should 

 have done, but I wished to show how it was possible to achieve a 

 fair share of success even with very rude appliances. Since the 

 days of which I have been writing I have had to do with a much 

 larger rearing establishment from which we turned out hundreds 

 of thousands of trout annually. Bnt there we had all the modern 

 improvements. A thickly thatched building in which the varia- 



