CHAP, in.] MARTIN AND GILLONE'S SYSTEM. 113 



artificial extraction and impregnation requires great care a 

 little maladroitness being sufficient to spoil thousands. 



The last hatching (spring 1865) has been most successfully 

 dealt with. Messrs. Martin and Gillone's breeding-boxes are 

 all under cover, being placed in a large lumber-store connected 

 with a biscuit manufactory. This chamber is seventy feet 

 long, and there is a double row of boxes extending the whole 

 length of the place. These receptacles for the eggs are made 

 of wood ; they are three feet long, one foot wide, and four 

 inches deep, and into the whole series a range of frames has 

 been fitted containing glass troughs on which to lay the eggs. 

 The edges of the glass are ground off, and they are fitted angu- 

 larly across the current in the shape of a V. The eggs are laid 

 down on, or rather sown into, these troughs, from a store 

 bottle, on to which is fitted a tapering funnel. The flow of 

 water, which is derived from the river, and is filtered to pre- 

 vent the admission of any impurity, is very gentle, being at 

 the rate of about fifteen feet per minute, and is kept perfectly 

 regular. The boxes are all fitted with lids, in order to prevent 

 the eggs from being devoured, as is often done, by rats and 

 other vermin, and also to assimilate the conditions of artificial 

 hatching as much as possible to those of the natural breeding- 

 beds where, of course, the eggs are covered up with gravel 

 and are hatched in comparative darkness. 



It may be of some use, particularly to those who are inter- 

 ested in pisciculture, to note a few details connected with the 

 capturing of the gravid fish and the plan of exuding the ova 

 practised at Tongueland. The river Dee is tolerably well 

 stocked with fish, as may be surmised from the rent I have 

 named as being paid for the right of fishing. Mr. Gillone 

 adopts the plan, now also in use at Stormontfield, of capturing 

 his fish in good time in fact, as a general rule, before the eggs 

 are ripe and of confining them in his mill-race till they are 

 thoroughly ready for manipulation. Last season i.e. in Nb- 



I 



