SMOLTS 15 



in a week or ten days. In small streams the time 

 may be shorter. 



When a salmon is stripped for hatchery purposes 

 as many eggs as possible are pressed from the 

 abdomen, and the fish is left in a collapsed and 

 wrinkled state quite foreign to the naturally 

 spawned-out kelt. At the hatcheries of the Pacific 

 coast rivers in America each female is first kUled 

 and then slit open. A considerable proportion of 

 the eggs so taken are not naturally ready for 

 extrusion, and yet the percentage of loss through 

 unfertilisation or subsequent death is small. In 

 the natural process all extruded eggs are per- 

 fectly ripe, and it is extremely unlikely that the 

 percentage of unfertiUsed eggs is greater. Over 

 against this, however, we have to reckon with the 

 attendance of the hungry trout as the redd is being 

 covered, and the subsequent attacks of creatures 

 capable of penetrating amongst the gravel. With 

 the conditions which obtain in the great majority of 

 our Scottish rivers there is abundant evidence to 

 show that the natural spawning of the salmon pro- 

 duces a return in smolts sufficient to provide for a 

 full stock. 



The egg, then, lodged in a dark crevice between 

 stones of the river bottom, develops till the time of 

 hatching arrives. The little fish, with its attached 

 yolk-sac, its food supply, then wriggles out, and for 

 a period of about fifty days continues to grow in 

 those dark recesses. Towards the end of this period, 

 as the yolk-sac has become much reduced, feeding 

 through the mouth is commenced, and efforts for 



