174 SEASON 1874-75. 



hatching have had to be removed on account of the alevins getting 

 inside the hollows of the glass tubes. Nota bene : Take out the 

 grilles another time as soon as the first egg hatches." 



This was the cause of the ova being laid down to hatch, perhaps 

 one of the most important discoveries in trout-hatching. 



Now, when a box is due, the grilles are picked and washed, the 

 box is cleaned out, the safety-screen is fitted, the ova or rather so 

 many of them as are considered a sufficient stocking are washed 

 off the grilles on to the charred bottom of the box, and in half an 

 hour or an hour the whole are hatched, except, perhaps, 1 per cent. 

 One of the best arguments to use to the public (who will not under- 

 stand nice differences in the vitality of the fry) in favour of grilles, is, 

 that no space is required specially for hatching. The grilles enable 

 you to hatch your ova in the boxes necessary for rearing fry, and 

 not only the ova you require for fry, but twice the quantity, so 

 that one-half may be laid down in redds or sold to help very sub- 

 stantially helpexpenses. There is no permanent market for the 

 fry from ova incubated in trays several layers deep. The public 

 may be satisfied at first, but so soon as they hear some neighbour 

 has done better a day of reckoning comes. 



On 24th January, Sunday, I fitted up a temporary sluice of paper 

 and zinc on the outlet of rearing-box 1 to deaden the current. 

 From this sprang the idea of deepening the water in all the boxes 

 up to a 20-ft. plank with a strip of flannel, which was next day 

 substituted for the flimsy paper. 



By the 1st February the difficulty of feeding my (as then 

 considered) large family stared me in the face. By this time I 

 had procured a copy of Stone's Domesticated Trout, and there 

 I read, on page 153, "It would be a great improvement in 

 the way of feeding young fry, if you could prepare some self- 

 acting contrivance which would feed out the required amount of 

 food gradually and continually all day, as, for instance, a closed 

 box of fine wire-netting, partly filled with food, and placed under 

 a fall in such a way that the water would force out the food little 

 by little all day." I read and re-read the passage. I saw what 

 was required was fresh food to be always in reach of the fry. Food 



