50 HOME FISHING AND HOME WATERS. 



the agitation of the water. It is also important 

 that the eggs should always be entirely under water 

 while examining them. " Handle with care " is an 

 injunction the common sense and value of which 

 will demonstrate itself to anyone, as his experience 

 in fish culture extends. 



FREE CIRCULATION. The object to be kept in 

 view, in the construction of apparatus for hatching 

 ftsh eggs is, to have it so arranged that the eggs or 

 spawn will receive the constant action of flowing 

 water without being washed away. By "plenty of 

 circulation," is meant sufficient to keep the eggs 

 slightly in motion, but not enough to move them 

 violently. The eggs of some fishes are much 

 lighter than those of others. For instance, those 

 of the trout and salmon are much heavier, and more 

 bulky, than those of the shad or white-fish. Conse- 

 quently, different apparatus has to be used in the 

 hatching of different kinds of fishes. A successful 

 fish-hatching apparatus should be so constructed 

 that the water will circulate freely around each indi- 

 vidual egg, and this current must not be allowed to 

 cease from the time the eggs are first put in until 

 the fishes are hatched. Absence of circulation re- 

 sults in sure death to the eggs, and this is one of 

 the reasons why so few eggs, cast naturally, produce 

 a fish. The egg must be fortunate, indeed, to be- 

 come located in as favorable a position as can be 

 given to it under artificial propagation. 



Taking into consideration the number of eggs cast 

 by all kinds of fish, I do not believe the average of 

 those hatched is more than one in a thousand , and 

 this is a liberal estimate. 



