59 
of the tanks in which they have been hatched that 
they perish by thousands from chill and inanition, with- 
out making an effort to find natural food in their new 
element. Accordingly the problem has been to devise 
a natural, self-reproducing food, so easy and certain in 
preparation that it may be cheaply and abundantly 
provided, and thus facilitate the maintenance of the 
alewives during the first ten or twelve months of their 
existence, by the end of which time they should be so 
strong and active that a large majority may be relied 
upon to survive the struggle for life in larger waters. 
The result seems to have been fully attained by a 
discovery made several years ago by Mr. F. Lugrin of 
Geneva, and practiced since 1884 in the piscicultural 
establishment at Gremaz, in the Department of Ain, in 
eastern France. As this process has been examined 
and approved by eminent experts, sent especially for 
this purpose by piscicultural societies of England and 
other countries, it is thought that some account of it 
may be of interest to .the large and rapidly growing 
class of fishculturists in the United States. 
Mr. Lugrin was for many years a practical fisher- 
man on Lake Geneva. He noted the steady diminu- 
tion of the more important species of fish in the lake, 
and sought to ascertain the cause He gradually reached 
the conclusion that the germ of the trouble lay in the 
growing scarcity of minute crustacea and larve which 
are the natural food of the trout and other fish, espe- 
cially during their first months of nutrition. 
After elaborate experiments, he hit upon a system 
by which Daphnia, Cyclops, freshwater shrimps (Gam- 
marus pulex), etc., could be bred in countless myriads 
at merely nominal cost. The hatching and rearing of 
a generation of these minute creatures is the work of 
from twelve to fifteen days, and as the process may be 
repeated—or rather repeats itself—again and again in 
the same water, the problem would seem to be solved. 
