DESPATCHING LIVE TROUT. 83 



and rigorously starved in the concrete tank. The day before 

 despatch the number required are placed in the 20 feet tank for 

 convenience, and when the carts with the travelling tanks are 

 ready to start, the water is run off, and the fish lifted off the 

 bottom. The temperature of the water in the despatch-house 

 should never exceed 40, or the fish will become dull when placed 

 in the iced travelling tank ; nor should the water in the travelling 

 tank be more than 3 below that in the despatch-house at starting. 

 In practice, we find 37 and 34 the most convenient temperatures. 

 The crushed ice in the perforated zinc cone in the lid will cause 

 the water in the travelling tank to fall nearly one degree before 

 reaching the station ; and so long as the ice remains in the lid it 

 will remain practically constant. Where the water into which 

 the fish are to be turned out is above 40, only sufficient ice to 

 last half the journey should be placed in the spray cone, so that 

 on the completion of the journey the water in the tank may 

 approximate to that into which the fish are to be turned. 



When the carts arrive at the Fishery, they are loaded in front of 

 the tank-house, the tanks being placed in numerical order, with 

 their numbers placed to the backs of the carts. The travelling tanks 

 are then filled, either by pails at the Loch Coulter burn, or by 

 the stand-pipe on the loading-bank in front of the despatch-house. 

 Should that be connected with unused Loch Coulter water, which, 

 on account of the Fishery not being already completed, is not 

 always convenient, two lorries, with four large tanks each, and a 

 cart, with two large tanks, can be backed against the loading-bank at 

 the despatch-house, while a third lorry can be loaded at the old 

 Howietoun hatching-house. Two hours and a half before the train 

 starts from Stirling Station the work of transferring the fish is 

 commenced. The lids are removed from the preparing-boxes 

 containing the fish to be carried in the travelling tanks in the first 

 lorry ; the flannels which heighten the water are stripped off the 

 outlet screens ; the numbers on the tanks and on the preparing- 

 boxes are checked with the despatching-house note, a copy of which 

 is given below ; the temperature in the travelling tanks ascertained, 

 and ice removed, or snow added, as required. Snow is very easily 



