BA 
rows of boxes which allows the free ends of the boxes to 
float up. ‘The rod is then suddenly released, and the 
boxes depressed rapidly into the water, which is forced 
up in powerful currents through the perforated bottom of 
the boxes. This separates the eggs in all directions, but 
without injury to the developing embryos. 
The mechanism employed in other establishments 
which use the same kind of hatching apparatus is driven 
by a water wheel. This wheel turns a cam which has a 
lever resting on itsrim. One end of the lever is weighted 
to give the necessary pull to the wires that suspend the 
rods. The other end has the main wires attached, and 
from these branches are led over pulleys to the various 
weighted rods. As the cam revolves the lever is alter- 
nately raised and depressed so pulling up and then 
releasing the wires. 
The arrangement of the hatching apparatus at Piel does 
not readily lend itself to the adoption of this method. 
Some other system had, therefore, to ‘be planned, and 
after various experiments, the apparatus now adopted by 
us was devised. This apparatus has given complete satis- 
faction during the last season, and as it is less compli- 
cated than the older systems, a description and illustra- 
tion may be useful to others, and will now be given. 
The apparatus may be briefly described as a direct- 
acting balance of the beam and scale pattern. It consists 
in the main of a balanced beam (see Plate A, 5). One 
end of the beam is attached to the middle of a light 
framework, which carries the wires connected to the 
weighted rods (5). The other end bears a frame contain- 
ing a “tumbling” box (4) of a similar design to those 
used in automatically measuring rainfall, washing photo- 
graphic prints, flushing drains, &e. The box is so con- 
structed that when empty it remains in a_ horizontal 
