13 



have almost absorbed their umbilical bag, and will shortly begin to 

 feed. I propose to feed them on the roe of soles. These American 

 fish are much more active (and I was going to write — it may be even 

 so — intelligent) fish than the salmon or trout {salmo fario). Possibly 

 they have imbibed some of the national American sharpness. I think 

 I shall consult them on the Alabama question. They are very diffi- 

 cult to catch, even in the confined space of the trough, and they often 

 jump out of the glass syphon tube used to catch them." 



This is all right, except the statement of the place where they came 

 from, which is wrong, for all the brook trout which Mr. Parnaby 

 carried to England with him came from our hatching-house at the 

 Cold Spring Trout Ponds, and were packed by us in the egg the day 

 before Mr. Parnaby sailed for England. We will add, as a matter of 

 statistics in relation to long journeys of trout ova, that the eggs, 

 10,000 in number, were packed in sj^hagnum moss in a common 

 wooden box about a foot square, on the 20th of November, 1871, at 

 Charlestown, N. H. They went from Charlestown to Boston, 120 

 miles by rail, on the same day. They remained in Boston over night, 

 and the next morning were put on board the ocean steamer which 

 sailed that day. They had a long passage of eighteen days to 

 Liverpool, and a considerable journey by rail afterwards from 

 Liverpool to Keswick. At the end of the journey two-thirds of 

 them opened in good condition, although some hatched on the 

 way and died, and the byssus generated by these, and by some of 

 the eggs that were killed during the first part of the trip, made great 

 havoc. 



Peeoious Facts. 



In speaking of the new method of the dry impregnation of fish 

 ova, two weeks ago, the compositor made us say " pre(c)ious facts " 

 instead of " pre(v)ious facts," as it was written in our MSS. The 

 facts are precious enough to the practical fish-breeder, considering 

 that they increase his yearly yield of young stock fifty per cent, and 

 .ve have no objection to calling them "precious facts," although all 

 we meant to say at the time was that the facts had been previously 

 stated. 



Now that we are on the subject again, we will speak of two infer- 

 ences that follow from these precious facts. One is that since the 

 spermatozoa of the milt remain alive several days when kept from 

 the air and water, a cross can be effected between fish living at long 

 distances apart without transporting the fish. For instance, a trout- 



