CHAPTER VI. 



DESPATCHING LIVE TROUT. 



THE transport of live trout entailed so much expense, and was 

 accompanied with so great risk, that until within the last few 

 years it could hardly be considered a practicable mode of stocking 

 waters. Howietoun has changed all this, and quarter-of-a-pound 

 trout can now be carried 500 miles by rail, and fattened for the 

 market, with considerable profit to the farmer, even although the 

 carriage, in this instance, still equals the first cost of the fish. 

 Trout require careful preparation before they can be safely 

 despatched to any distance, long or short ; and when it is 

 considered how few fish survive a journey during which the 

 water in the tanks has been repeatedly changed, to say nothing 

 of the expense of the arrangements required to enable this to be 

 done, the immense importance of preparing trout in such a 

 manner that it will not be necessary to change the water during 

 transit is obvious. Each time the water was changed in the old 

 and now exploded method of transporting trout, three malignant 

 fiends watched over the operation, each ready to seize an oppor- 

 tunity to destroy. The first, and most frequently fatal, can only 

 be detected by a most delicate thermometer. Though trout can 

 live through a great range of temperature, a sudden change, 

 especially if repeated at short intervals, induces what is com- 

 monly known as gill fever. The second fury is seldom so prolific 

 of loss as her elder sister ; but she never fails to claim some 

 victims whose deaths may be classified under the heading- 

 Injuries due to Handling. The last fiend happily rarely claims 

 her toll, but she makes up for the seeming courtesy by the totality 

 of the loss where her death-dealing waters are used ; and when 

 the tanks are replenished with strange water it is often impossible 



