ARTIFICIAL PERCH CULTURE 227 



deposited, and protecting them and the fry from their 

 numerous enemies. Perch eggs, as will have been 

 noticed in a previous chapter, being in bands of 

 glutinous matter, are not handled so easily as the 

 eggs of the Salmonidae, which resemble so many little 

 peas. It is a curious fact that while many trout eggs 

 fail to get impregnated with milt in the natural course 

 of events, most perch eggs get satisfactorily milted. 

 Perhaps the reason of. this is that the running water 

 in which trout spawn, washes much of the milt away 

 before it can reach the eggs. Perch, on the other 

 hand, as I have already stated, spawn if possible in 

 quiet waters, the milt spreading slowly about the place 

 where it is deposited. 



One of the most successful methods of ensuring 

 the hatching of a large number of perch eggs is to 

 take the ordinary open sheep-hurdle of ash or willow, 

 weave branches of willow through the stakes, and 

 sink this simple apparatus in four to five feet of water 

 in the bays or backwaters of rivers which are almost 

 or quite unaffected by the stream. In lakes, weedy 

 bays known to be the spawning grounds of perch 

 should be selected. In small ponds the hurdles should 

 simply be fixed near the bank in water of sufficient 

 depth to contain them. These bough-covered hurdles 

 should not be provided too long before the spawning 



Q2 



