268 AGRICULTUliAL REPORT. 



river. I loimd.that this would uot do, because tlic mmuows took them 

 eveu wliile I was putting tliern in. There were also schools of minnows 

 around the hatching-boxes, and as soon as I turned them over to empty 

 out the young shad, the work of destruction commenced. I caught 

 one minnow, one minute after I had turned out the young shad, and 

 found eleven in his stomach. In order to gain time for working out this 

 problem, I built a kind of pond with stones on the bank of the river, 

 and i^ut in the young lish. The next day, when looking for them, I found 

 that they had all apparently escaped. But the banks of my i)ond were 

 made tight with gravel and I did not tliiuk that the yoangfish could get 

 through. While looking intently into the pond, I saw a little wriggler 

 passing over a white stone at the bottom, and then I remembered that 

 the young fish were almost transparent, and that it was hard to see 

 anything of them except the eyes. By watching the stones at the bot- 

 tom I found that all the shad were collected in the deepest water of the 

 pond, or that part farthest from the shore. Here was a revelation ; 

 but in order to be certain of this new order of things, I tore down the 

 outer portion of the pond- wall, and built it out farther, into deeper water. 

 I i)ut in some more shad, and, remembering the experience of the day 

 before, I strewed white stones over the bottom and sunk white paper. 

 The next day I could easily examine the whole j^ond by aid of the stones 

 and i^aper, and found, as I exx^ected, that all the fry were again gath- 

 ered in the deepest water, or that farthest from shore. It was all 

 plain enough now. The young shad, as soou as they emerged from 

 the shell, sought the middle of the river. They were too small to be 

 noticed by the large fish, and the minnows, their enemies, did not 

 dare to come into the deep water after them, lest they in turn should 

 become food for the larger fish. While experimenting in the ponds 

 I had obtained a drug, and with it killed all the minnows in the 

 vicinity of the boxes, and then turned out the fish. But so many 

 relations came to the funeral that I was obliged to relinquish this r>lan. 

 I then went some distance above and roiled up the water, and as 

 soon as it became so muddy that the minnows could not see to take' the 

 shad, I emx)tied the hatching-boxes. This was at best a clumsy ar- 

 rangement, and was discarded as soon as I had found out that the fry 

 sought the deep water. After this the boxes were towed into the mid- 

 dle of the river and emptied, until I happened to remember that the 

 minnows did not feed at night, and after that the boxes were emptied at 

 the hatching-stand at night, as the fish would find their way into the 

 middle of the river before morning light. Still further to test the ques- 

 tion of tlie place of their abode, I took a dipperfullof young fish and 

 sank it slowly beneath the surface of the river, near the shore ; the fry 

 rose up out of the dipper, and without one exception headed for the 

 middle of the river. I tried it again a little further out with the same 

 result, ami then I went across the river to the other shore and tried it 

 there with still the same result. 



I thought then that I " knew it all," but there was one more thing 

 to learn, and that I did not find out till some time after. In July, 1868, 

 my eggs began to suffer from some cause ; I could not find out the reason. 

 I had no suspicion at first that the water could be too warm for them ; 

 but, as I remembered that for some days the weather had been exceed- 

 ingly hot and sultry, I thought I would see if the heat had anything to 

 do with their failure to hatch ; so I put a row of boxes into the mouth of 

 the creek, extending them out into the river. On examining them next 

 day found the temperature of the boxes in the river at 82^, and the 

 eggs all dying. At the other end of the string the temperature stood 



