HATCHING THE EGGS. 131 



suppose that the next night, when he gets hungry 

 again, he will not return to where he left a rich supper 

 the night before ? Do you suppose there is one 

 chance in a hundred of his not coming ? There is not 

 even that small chance. If the mouse is alive the next 

 night, and has not been driven away, he will come back 

 to his feast as sure as darkness comes on, and so he 

 will continue to do every night of his life while the eggs 

 last. And yet I hear people say, in the coolest way 

 imaginable, of their unprotected spawn, " I guess noth- 

 ing will come to take the eggs to-night." Why, not 

 only is the warm hatching-house an attractive place to 

 these creatures of prey in the winter, when the eggs are 

 hatching, because of its comparative warmth, but they 

 are every one of them impelled to these eggs by the 

 strongest of animal instincts, namely, hunger. How, 

 then, can the eggs escape, if they are exposed ? 



The only protection that I believe in is covers. 

 Traps and poison may or may not remove the cause 

 of loss before the loss comes, but tight lids make the 

 thing sure. Have tight lids, fitting close, over all your 

 troughs, and you may sleep in peace at night for all 

 the injury that rats and mice and other outside enemies 

 will do your eggs. 



4. Byssus. This is also a fungus growth, like the 

 other, but it comes from the eggs themselves, and not 

 from external sources, and it is not so much to be 

 feared. This plant is created by matter decaying in 

 the water ; so that whenever a fish egg loses its vitality 

 and begins to putrefy, byssus commences to grow. 

 With trout eggs in water at 40 or 50 degrees Fahren- 



