376 Report of Experiments on the Salmonidce of the Tweed. 



kept sending one account after another of its success, it was 

 resolved to give it a trial. The first to do so were the 

 authorities of the Tay, who commenced breeding ponds at 

 Stormontfield, under the superintendence of the late Mr 

 Buist ; and I need not say how enthusiastically he went into 

 it, and how successful have been the results. I visited them 

 first with Mr Buist, some fourteen years ago ; and again this 

 season, and found Mr Marshall attending to his young family 

 as carefully as ever. The Tweed Commissioners also early 

 turned their attention to it,, and commenced ponds at Nab- 

 dean burn (on the property of D. M. Home, Esq., Paxton 

 House), under the care of their former superintendent, Mr 

 Mitchell, and in which I took a deep interest. It was always 

 thought that they could only be propagated by the male and 

 female coming together in the usual way ; but this experi- 

 ment proved that this is not necessary. The male and female 

 salmon were caught in a stream above Melrose : the female 

 was taken by the gill, and the belly stripped down by the 

 hand, causing the ova to flow in a stream like so many peas 

 into a pail ;. and the milt of the male was subjected to a like 

 process, and the contents well mixed together, and then 

 taken down the river a distance of forty miles, put into the 

 boxes, and covered with gravel. There it remains until the 

 month of April, about which time the hatching generally 

 takes place. This part of the process is deeply interesting. 

 The first thing you notice, is an object of a tadpole appear- 

 ance ; and on examining it more minutely, you observe a 

 round globe or bag of a very fine shade, from a pink to a 

 purple colour ; and across the top of this bag, you find a 

 minute fish, as small as a fine small sewing needle. This 

 little thing floats about on the top of this balloon, and tries to 

 hide himself under the stones when you approach too close 

 to it. The boxes in which the gravel is deposited, have a 

 continuous flow of water running over them ; every square 

 having a small opening in the corner, opposite to where it 

 enters, and that causes the flow to be uniform over the whole 

 surface. Mr Gilhome, of Tongueland, in Kircudbrightshire, 

 has introduced an improvement on this system, by making 

 his breeding boxes of wood frames, fitted with ribbed glass, 

 in the shape of ridges and furrows, across which the water 

 flows, and in which the ova are sown in the same way as peas 

 in a garden. These frames he has placed in an old house, 

 and causes a stream of filtered water to flow over them. 



