THE EGG HARVEST. 29 



current removes the effete milt, and after five minutes the ova are 

 ready for the hatching-house. When all the ripe fish in the net 

 have been spawned, the remaining males are set free, and the nets 

 hung up to dry. From twelve to twenty gallons of ova represent 

 a good morning's work, eighteen gallons being the most I ever 

 remember taking out of a single net full of females. Eighteen 

 gallons of ova contain about 600,000 eggs. I myself have spawned 

 twelve gallons of ova in an hour and a half, on the 24th December 

 1885. They filled twenty-five boxes, but, being taken from the 

 largest trout, would only number some 350,000. 



Collecting salmon eggs is a very different business, at least at 

 present, and will remain so until fishery boards sufficiently under- 

 stand the true interests of their districts, and build proper ponds 

 in which to retain the gravid fish until ripe. 



I have frequently had to arrange for the collection of salmon 

 ova for the New Zealand Government, and for stocking the Forth 

 district. 175,000 salmon ova were obtained for the New Zealand 

 Government, and brought to Howietoun in Christmas week 1885. 

 This was the whole produce of five days' netting at the mouth of 

 the Almond and in the Earn. I believe it took twenty-two days' 

 netting in the same district to fill the hatching-house at New 

 Mill, which is now so successfully replacing Stormontfield (the 

 house contains twenty hatching-boxes similar to those at Howie- 

 toun). This gives more than one day's netting to a box, although 

 ova is more easily obtained in the Tay district than anywhere else 

 in Scotland. 



Over the five seasons I have obtained ova from the Forth dis- 

 trict, I have not averaged more than a box per day. The time, 

 trouble, and expense usually expended in obtaining salmon ova are 

 very great, and blank days are of frequent occurrence, though 

 of course occasionally, when the water is exactly right, and the 

 last run of fish nicely ripened, 100,000 eggs may be obtained in 

 a single day ; but such a fortunate combination of circumstances 

 rarely occurs. 



In collecting the ova of wild trout even greater difficulties 

 arise. There are no carefully-tended shots, with all stones and 



