RIVER FISHERIES. 95 



given by Shaw a quarter of a century ago. The nests, or excava- 

 tions, are made not with the nose, but with the tail. Many of the 

 ova are neither impregnated nor co\ered, and are carried down stream, 

 where shoals of trout await them. The method of the trout is almost 

 identical. The female lies close to the bottom with her head up 

 stream, and gently fanning with her tail ; a few inches above lies 

 her mate keeping a sharp look out for all intruders, at whom he 

 darts furiously whenever they approach ; even the female rushes at 

 them when they are numerous. From time to time, she, by a spiral 

 contortion of the body, brings her tail with a strong sweep against 

 the gravel ; and this, after a while, makes a rough depression or 

 " nest." Over this she stays and begins a kind of serpentine motion 

 of the body, the object of which seems to be to work the eggs from 

 the ovary into the abdominal cavity. Presently the ova are ejected 

 with a convulsive tremor of the muscles, and simultaneously the 

 male throws the milt into the water. The eggs are covered in part 

 by the current, in part by the tails of the fish ; but many are not im- 

 pregnated at all, and many more are swept down stream, where they 

 are eaten by expectant fish. 



Our trout shows many variations even in neighbouring localities. 

 Old John Trout, the veteran angler of Webster's day, could distin- 

 guish unfailingly a fish from Monument River, Red Brook, or Marsh- 

 pee Brook (all streams emptying near each other on the south side of 

 Cape Cod ;) and that not from colour, but from shape. The Dublin 

 lake trout of New Hampshire are well known for their peculiar deli- 

 cacy of form. 



ARTIFICIAL BREEDING OF SHAD, 



Early in last summer, Seth Green offered to come, at his own ex- 

 pense, and try to hatch the eggs of the shad at Holyoke, provided 

 the New England Commissioners would furnish the necessary appa- 

 ratus. This man bids fair to prove the Remy of this country, not 

 because he has succeeded in hatching a certain number of trout, but 

 because he has originality, as well as skill, and large ideas, as well 

 as originality. He has a living faith that our rivers, ponds, and 

 bays may, by artificial breeding, be so filled with fish, that, to use 

 his own words, " the people can't catch 'em out, if they try." With 

 more truth than fancy, he says, " Let your State spend a tenth part 

 in planting fish of what it spends in planting corn, (that don't pay 

 for the rising), and every poor man may have a fish dinner the year 

 round." The newspapers and periodicals have spoken of him, only 

 to say that he is a noted sportsman. To be a crack shot, and to 

 throw a fly eighty feet are things of no great matter, but to increase 

 and cheapen the food of a whole people is worthy the devotion of a 

 lifetime. 



Having taken the ripe fish with a sweep-seine, he removed and 

 impregnated the ova in the way already described for trout. These, 

 to the number of some millions, he spread in boxes ; but, to his great 



