CARE OF ALEVINS. 147 



The alevins are also very hardy, as respects general 

 causes of sickness or injury in their every-day life. 

 If you have run a good ripple of water over the eggs 

 when hatching, and have kept it up with the young fish 

 after hatching, your loss in the yolk-sac stage will be 

 very slight indeed, sometimes almost nothing. 



A few will die in the act of emerging from the shell, 

 and some will have what, for want of a better name, 

 might be called the blue swelling* which is fatal ; but 

 with these exceptions you will lose very few indeed 

 from disease during the yolk-sac period. 



Some will be born with curved spines, or with two 

 heads or two vertebral columns, but they are likely to 

 live until the feeding period. It may be well to add 

 here, that now is the time to collect any monstrosities 

 that you may wish to preserve in spirits, such as 

 double-headed fish, double-bodied fish, and the like. 

 The perfectly formed fish are the most beautiful 

 and most ciTriously formed in reality ; but you will 

 probably want to preserve some of the misshapen 

 freaks of nature, nevertheless, and now is the time to 

 do it. In this instance there is no cruelty in it, as 

 these deformed creatures would all die a lingering^' 

 death before long, if left to themselves. I never knew 

 any of the misshapen fish to grow up, except those 

 whose spines, after a curve or apparent joint, resume, 

 or nearly resume, the original line of the vertebra. 

 These will sometimes grow up and do well, even 

 where there are two deflections or joints in the back. 

 I sent one qf that description to market year before 



* Green calls it the " dropsy." 



