REARING 165 



follow the eggs and do not run in front of them. 

 Simultaneously with the movement of your right hand 

 the fish's tail is slightly bent back with your left 

 hand. Avoid all pressure on the lower part of the 

 abdomen ; and on no account use force to press out 

 the spawn. Your efforts should be directed towards 

 making each fish, as far as possible, spawn itself. 

 Clumsy handling is often responsible for an injury 

 to the eyeball of a spawncr, resulting at a later stage 

 in blindness. 



A common glazed earthenware milk pan held 

 close to the fish by an attendant receives the eggs. 

 The pan should be clean, and should contain no 

 water except the few drops which may fall from the 

 fish. Sometimes a trout, although mature, will hold 

 back its spawn. But in any case, if the eggs refuse 

 to exude readily take another fish, and try the first 

 one again later on. 



The amateur will probably not be very neat- 

 handed at first. By unskilful manipulation he may 

 cause the fish to struggle, and may even allow it to 

 slip from his grasp into the spawning pan, thereby 

 destroying a quantity of eggs. But practice makes 

 perfect, and you will soon acquire the knack of strip- 

 ping the fish with such ease and rapidity that trouble 

 from struggling will be a rare occurrence. 



