JusK 1, 1900.1 



KNOWLEDGE 



I2i 



Isaak Walton, "The Salmon i^j^.ilnx. .-ahu ) is the king 

 of freshwater fish, and he has, like some persons of 

 honour and riches, which have both their Summer and 

 Winter residences, the fresh rivers for Summer and salt 

 ■water for Winter to spend his life in." 



We must conclude then that it is a case of " uneasy 

 lies the head that wears a crown, ' because a more 

 modern authority (^Frank Buckland) remarked in a 

 lecture. '" perhaps the most unfortunate thing in the 

 world is the salmon. Everybody and everything, from 

 the otter to the fisherman, persecutes him." Again, 

 "the trout then comes to eat the eggs, next a whole 

 swarm of flies and insects; then the water-ouzel, who 

 goes to eat the flies, is shot by ourselves under the idea 

 that the bird is after the eggs, and not after the flies ; 

 the result is that not one egg out of ten thousand ever 

 becomes food for man.''|| So, though fish culliirists 

 cannot keep the salmon till they arrive at maturity, 

 artificial spawning and hatching obviates these initial 

 evils, etnd, so to say, gives the young salmon a fair start 

 in life. 



The spawning season of trout is from October to 

 January inclusive, and they begin to spawn when about 

 three years old. The stock fish are examined from 

 time to time by an expert, who can tell at a glance if 

 they are ripe for spawning. An expert can also dis- 

 tinguish the males from the females easily, as a rule, 

 which would not be a simple matter for an ordinjiry 

 observer to determine. 



When the fish are ready to spawn they are netted 

 from the stock ponds, and the finest selected are re- 

 moved to the spawning shed in large two-handled tubs. 

 The female fish are placed in a large trough with 

 divisions, and the males in a large tub. Two or three 

 females are removed from one of the divisions of the 

 trough in a landing net, which is then held over a 

 carefully dried basin and the ova gently squeezed 

 (stripped) from the fish into the receptacle. The fish 

 are then returned to the trough but are placed in an 

 empty division. When the basin is considered to con- 

 tain enough ova, a male is netted from jhe tub, held 

 over the basin, and his milt squeezed on to the ova. 



The spawTi and milt are then gently stirred together, 

 when they adhere for a short time and then again be- 

 come separate. When this occurs the ova are well 

 washed and placed on ' grilles. ' These grilles are shallow 

 trays with wooden sides and glass bottoms made of glass 

 rods placed side by side, which keep the eggs from 

 washing away, but alio- the water to flow over and 

 through. Each grille, which holds from 3,000 to 4,000 

 eggs, IS then removed to the hatchery. The hatchery 

 is one of the most interesting buildings on the farm, 

 and the photograph conveys a good idea of its internal 

 appearance when in full work. The water is laid on 

 through underground pipes so that the supply shall 

 never freeze in transit, and the hatchery itself is 

 heated with hot-water pipes, as before this was done, 

 the supply of water on arrival sometimes froze and 

 consequently might have ceased flowing through the 

 hatchery boxes had not an attendant remained present 

 all night in order to prevent such a contingency. The 

 hatchery boxes containing the grilles must have a con- 

 stant stream of water running through them. These 

 boxes are provided with removable covers, as the process 

 of hatching has to take place in the dark. When the 

 alevins appear a part of the cover is removed so that the 

 fish can be in light or dark surroundings as they 



II " Life of Frank Buckland," by G. C. Bomiws. 



iouili.5 to hatch ac- 



prefcr. Spawn UiiiLo .lO^^,.. ;i;. 

 cording to temperature. 



The ova are forwarded to all paits of the world 

 when they aro " eyed, ' which occurs from 50 to 60 

 days after spawning. The packing of the ova is a 

 very important matter and tlie eggs aro never touched 

 by hand. Wooden trays are constructed with bottoms 

 of well-seasoned perforated zinc. On the zinc is laid a 

 sheet of felted moss (a suitable moss is cultivated for 

 the purpose), and over that a pieco of fine net is placed, 

 then a layer of eggs, then more fabric, more felt, fabric, 

 eggs, and so on. Each tray holds three layers of eggs, 

 and eight trays are placed in an inner case \/hich is 

 packed round with sawdust. For sea voyages of long 

 duration an extra tray with perforated bottom is filled 

 with ice and put on top of the inner c;ise; this lowers 

 the temj)erature sufliciently to retard completion of 

 hatching till arrival at the destination. Sometimes, 

 for very long journeys, the eggs are packed simply 

 between moss felt without intervening fabric. 



Rivers and lakes in Australia, the Cape, New 

 Zealand, Canada, etc., have been stocked with fish 

 from this farm, and have done well, so evidently the 

 eggs travel satisfactorily in this way. Only spawn is 

 sent abroad, but fish, from the fry stage to adult, are 

 sent all over Great Britain and Ireland for stocking 

 rivers and lakes. The fry arc retained in the hatching 

 boxes for six weeks after emerging, and they require 

 no food for the first month, as they have an umbilical 

 sac, on the contents of which they live till their mouths 

 are in a sufliciently developed state to take external 

 sustenance; for the alevins on first leaving the egg, 

 though more finished in appearance than the wormlike 

 offspring of the kangaroo, are by no means the 

 " speckled beauties ' they become eventually. After 

 six weeks or so the fry are removed to small fry or 

 nursery ponds. The adult fish are fed twice a day and 

 the fry four times; their food consists of horseflesh, 

 beef, etc., which is passed through mincing machines. 

 The best food of all is said to be shrimps, but these, 

 though the company keeps a private trawler for the 

 puiijose, are not always procurable; other foods are 

 also largely used, and one of them is maggots. There 

 is a large maggot " factory," where all meaty scraps, 

 offal and dead vermin .u-e collected and quickly turn 

 into an appetizing (?) nutritive food. The meat is 

 suspended on an iron grating, and the grubs, as they 

 appear, fall through into a tray and are swept up, meal 

 fed, scalded and divided among the ponds. Tadpoles 

 are also used in immense quantities, and frog spawn is 

 procured literally by the ton every season to breed from. 

 Crustaceans, mollusks, insects, etc., are also of great 

 benefit, but these I will return to later. The food of 

 the adult fish is thrown on the surface of the ponds. 

 It is a curious sight to see the fish fed; one moment, 

 you look on an unruffled sheet of water reflecting the 

 trees and clouds as a mirror; the next, an attendant 

 having thrown a handful of mince in, the pond suddenly 

 becomes a rough sea, and some of the inmates leap 

 right out of the water in the exuberance of their spirits, 

 their sleek, spotted sides glistening in this sun. The fry 

 are too small to swallow the ordinary minced meat, so 

 they are fed in a different manner. An instrument 

 called a feeder is used. It is a box about 9 inches 

 square and 4 inches deep, made with wooden sides, a 

 perforated zinc bottom, and a long handle. A little 

 food is put in this box, which is then half immersed 

 in the water of the fry pond and moved from side to 

 side. The smaller particles of food gravitate through 



