36 THE NATURAL HISTOKY AND HABITS 



in much the same state that they were in the previous 

 evening. The beds are watched all this day with the 

 most intense anxiety, and yet night comes without 

 producing the grand exhibition ; all was motion, but 

 none had yet burst the shell. However, next morn- 

 ing, the ova being now one hundred and thirty-five 

 days among the gravel, the shells of the eggs were 

 yielding and giving way to the pressure from within ; 

 numbers of them already burst, numbers bursting, and 

 numbers yet remaining whole. This is the moment 

 of anxiety ; the long-looked-for period has now 

 arrived, that of a new generation of fish being 

 launched from a state of thraldom into one of liberty, 

 and into their own natural element. They are now 

 cast abroad among the waters, with nature for their 

 only guide : to her provisions their parents have left 

 them one hundred and thirty-five days ago, and she 

 has formed them to thrive without nurse or protector, 

 and sent them forth on a hazardous journey, pro- 

 visioned only for five weeks, and she exhibits them in 

 all their history and habits amongst the strangest and 

 most wonderful works of creation. 



The ova we have described above is the por- 

 tion we placed in the running water, in the copper- 

 wire baskets, and among the gravel in the stream ; 

 for the portion that we placed in the still part of the 

 pond, I found completely addled and unproductive. 

 In these the ova first turned white ; then it gathered 

 a white woolly moulding over them ; and, lastly, it 

 stuck together in one addled lump. I tried, also, un- 

 impregnated ova, which I put into one of the wire 

 baskets, and placed it in the stream, close to where 

 the impregnated ova were, and it failed after the 

 same manner as the impregnated ova that I deposited 

 in the still water. I also, during a severe storm of 

 frost, lifted one of the baskets from the stream, and 



