FISH BREEDING. 681 



poultry-yard, is no fool for " counting his chickens before they are 

 hatched." If the conditions are otherwise right, the eggs, with but little 

 attention, are sure to hatch. 



In a little while a small black spot will be perceived, at the point of 

 impregnation ; this gradually increases in size until it becomes about as 

 large as the head of a pin — it is the head of the fish ; from this the body 

 is projected, coiled up* in the egg, and when the growth is completed the 

 shell is broken and the new creature issues forth into the element in which 

 it is to live.* 



Sustenance, Food, and Growth. — The unconsumed portion of the yolk is 

 attached to its belly, and upon this the fish, now nearly torpid, subsists 

 until it is completely absorbed and the new being is able to take care of 

 itself. ■)" It thrives and grows rapidly upon the nutriment contained in the 

 water ; but it soon begins to exhibit the qualities which make it a game 

 fish, and especially the instinctive adroitness of its race in seizing upon any 

 choice morsels of food that come within the range of its vision. But it is 

 still a babe and a suckling, and while it continues to be so, it is confined 

 to a diet formed by dissolving congealed blood, obtained at the butcher's, 

 and thrown into the water. By the end of the season it has increased 

 from about the size of a small dress pin, to be a fish from three to four 

 inches long, and is admitted into the deeper water of the first pond, where it 

 resides for a year, when it is admitted into the second and remains there 

 for a year. During these two years it is fed upon the heart, lungs, and 

 livers of animals, finely hashed and thrown upon the water. They soon 

 learn to be fed, and to expect their regular rations ; and whilst the food is 



* The reader has no doubt discovered that these ponds are so arranged as to pos- 

 sess a double advantage ; i. e., that the fish may be produced artificially, while they 

 can also propagate naturally on the spawning-beds j though in the latter case, as 

 the young occupy the same water with the larger fish, they are liable to be devoured 

 by them. 



■f- I have heard it stated, though I cannot now call to mind where, or by whom, 

 that the shell or covering of the ova, after it is broken by the internal struggles of 

 the young fish, does not fall or slough off, as some have supposed, in fact ; that no 

 part of it is lost. On the contrary, it is said that the broken edges go to form the 

 fins ; the upper fringe growing into a dorsal and the posterior edge of the broken 

 shell forming the caudal fin, or tail of the fish. Part of the shell must of course 

 envelope the umbilical bladder, or sac of aliment from which the young of the 

 trout draws its sustenance for the first month of its existence, and it may be that 

 the sac as well as the nutriment it contains is absorbed in the growth of the 

 young fish. 



