90 Modern Fishcultnre in Fresh and Salt Water. 



pect fish to be an exception ? Given 20,000 good trout 

 eggs, with the eyes to be seen in each egg, they are 

 about fifty days old and are due to hatch in ten or 

 twenty days more. He will pick out 500 white eggs 

 before they begin to hatch and 500 more in dead and 

 deformed embryos that never could live. That is only 

 5 per cent, loss before feeding, and is very low. It is 

 more likely to be twice that number, yet there is no fault 

 to be found with the seller nor with the receiver. It is 

 the natural mortality which is common to all young 

 animals. It is part of nature's scheme in animal in- 

 crease, and no man can improve it. 



We not only impregnate more eggs than is possible in 



EMBRYO SALMON, showing yoke sac with oil globules and 

 veins, also the embryonic fin with indications of perma- 

 nent fins. 



a state of nature, but we protect both Jggs and embryos 

 until the little fellows are ready to take food, a period of 

 some seventy days in the egg and of at least thirty more 

 before the sac is absorbed. This nearly covers the win- 

 ter months and brings our proteges up to the time when 

 insect life, either in perfect form or larvae, is stirring in 

 the spring and affording food for the baby trout which, 

 having absorbed its yolk-sac, is swimming clear of the 

 bottom, heading up-stream and examining every tiny 

 bit that floats down. It takes a morsel in its mouth, 



