Parasites, Diseases and Enemies. 263 



made me wish that there was a wail about the place that 

 even I could not get over. My orders were not to let a 

 visitor see a dead fish'; but the fish would die in their 

 sight, and one dead fish is more interesting to a visitor 

 than a thousand live ones, for it affords a chance for 

 questions that no man can answer. 



Even in a hatching trough thirty thousand live and 

 healthy fish will not be noticed by a visitor if a dead 

 one is to be seen. A statement that out of the same 

 number of pigs, colts, chickens or children the death 

 rate would be as great, if not greater, brings it squarely 

 to them ; but during the epidemic, when a dozen or more 

 large fish were seen belly up, there was only one thing 

 to do, and that was to have a man to keep visitors in- 

 terested elsewhere while the dead were being taken out 

 and buried. 



Although the loss was not, pecuniarily speaking, a 

 personal one to me, yet no man ever felt more disap- 

 pointed at seeing the results of his labor swept away 

 than I did. My long experience in fishculture fur- 

 nished no antidote to counteract the poison that was 

 more than decimating the stock which I had carefully 

 reared, and on which my professional reputation hung. 

 Many a time a husky voice belied an assumed indif- 

 ference as I told a man to "bury 'em in the geranium 

 bed, 'twill make 'em bloom in the fall," but at night 

 the question, "Is this station which I selected and have 

 tried to build up a failure?" was annoying beyond ex- 

 pression. 



During the summer of 1891 only one fish manifested 

 any sign of this disease, and it was buried in July. The 

 summer was an exceedingly good one for both fry and 

 adult fish, and the losses in each class were small. 



From many answers received in 1891, I quote the 



