NINTH ANNUAL MEETING. 2 
* 
we know that it had good cause for dying, and particularly since 
we know that we are responsible for its death, we should go to 
work and discover what the cause is, and then remove it. If we 
do this, and continue to do it until we have eliminated all the 
-causes of loss, what can there be, I should like to know, to pre- 
vent our fish from going through to their journey’s end happily 
and triumphantly alive ? Having stated in general the require- 
ments of the successful transportation of living fishes, and hav- 
ing expressed the opinion that most if not all the cold-water 
varieties of fishes can be successfully transported, perhaps I 
cannot better employ the time which remains to me than by 
enumerating some of the causes of loss in travelling with fishes, 
and the first of these which I shall mention is, 
(1.) Transporting fish at wrong seasons of the year. An in- 
experienced person would think at first that fish that could be 
carried at all could be carried at one season of the year as well 
as another. But this is far from the truth. There are many 
species of fish that can travel with the greatest impunity at one 
season of the year, when it is utterly impossible to move them 
at another. To take-a very well-known illustration: a brook- 
trout (salmo fontinalis) caught in midsummer, when he is very fat 
and the water is warm, will sometimes give his captor great 
trouble to keep him alive at all, while every one knows that trout 
in midwinter, when-they are lean and the water is very cold, can 
be carried any distance with very little trouble and perfect safety. 
Of the truth of our remark, the whitefish (coregonus albus) is an 
excellent illustration. In June, when he is fat and the water is 
warm, he will almost die in being taken from the net, but in 
winter when properly treated he gives his attendant no trouble. 
The same is true of many other species, though these two exam- 
ples are sufficient to illustrate the principle, and it becomes ob- 
vious that great loss may result from carrying fishes at a wrong 
time of the year. 
(2.) Another common cause of loss is in starting with un- 
cleanly or unsuitable tanks. I, could name many instances that 
have come to my knowledge where a valuable lot of fish have 
been lost by neglecting to clean the tanks they were carried in. 
