98 Salmon at the Antipodes. 



servation, that out of 1000 salmon eggs left to 

 be hatched in the natural way, only one is 

 allowed to reach the marketable stage, when 

 the fish is fit for the table, as a grilse or an 

 adult salmon. When a female salmon or trout 

 is spawning, other trout and salmon he in wait, 

 and devour the ova greedily. In fact, ova are 

 a most killing bait, and their use is prohibited 

 in England as being unsportsmanlike. Eels, 

 lizards, snakes, and birds devour them ; 

 droughts and frosts may cause them to perish ; 

 and when the young fry is hatched, it is still 

 more liable to danger, as it is extremely help- 

 less in its alevin state. Notwithstanding all 

 these perils, were it not for the engines of 

 destruction brought against them by man, the 

 rivers would swarm with salmon and trout, as 

 has been the case in former times in Scotland, 

 and is still so in some of the American rivers. 

 If man has destroyed, however, science has 

 given him the means to replace, and where 

 only one in a thousand has come to maturity 

 naturally, one in five may do so with artificial 

 hatching, and rearing. 



The most approved mode of hatchiug 

 salmon and trout, is to place the ova on fine 



