REARING THE YOUNG FRY. 165 



the fish, whether from playfulness or from actual fear, 

 will dart away and try to get out of sight, but the 

 presence of the food in the water will soon attract 

 them again, and they will swarm around it from all 

 quarters. If you have plenty of time and patience, 

 and not too many fish, you can collect them all in 

 one or two places, by waiting for them to come up ; 

 but if you have a great many and need to be expedi- 

 tious, you will probably resort to feeding more rapidly 

 and in several places. You can begin feeding, if you 

 like, with the yolk of eggs, boiled a half-hour and 

 pulverized very fine. This is sometimes more con- 

 venient and accessible, when you have only a few fish, 

 than the liver and curd feed, and some persons con- 

 tinue to use the egg for several months ; but this is 

 not recommended. It is more expensive, it makes 

 the worst possible corruption when it does sink to the 

 bottom and foul the water, and I think it is not so 

 wholesome or nutritious as a mixed meat and curd 

 diet. Liver alone answers very well, but neither egg 

 nor curd alone will do. It would be a great improve- 

 ment, in the way of feeding the young fry, if you could 

 prepare some self-acting contrivance, which would 

 feed out the required amount of food gradually and 

 continually all day, as, for instance, a closed box of 

 fine wire netting, partly filled with food and placed 

 under a fall, in such a way that the water will force 

 out the food, little by little, all day.* The box should 



* This idea has been carried into execution by Herr Otto 

 Hammerle, an Austrian fish culturist in Vorarlberg, who has in- 

 vented a feeding-machine which is constructed on the principles 



