402 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



Bass prefers moderately still water to fast-ruhriing streams, as 

 it is not migratory. In ponds which are confined, plenty of 

 food in the shape of minnows, small fish of any sort, frogs, 

 liver and Crustacea should be supplied to the Black Bass, or 

 they will eat up each other, and the owner of the pond will 

 find in a short time his stock reduced to about half-a-dozen or 

 so of large old bass, who will (particularly if males) fight it out 

 with each other till one has the whole pond to himself. 



I have done my best to describe the Black Bass as correctly 

 as possible, but no doubt some of my observations are liable to 

 correction. 



Yours very truly, 



W. Oldham Chambers, Esq. EXETER. 



Secretary to the 

 National Fish Culture Association. 



Report from Mr. Walter Silk to the Marquis of Exeter. 



'hibj Lord, — As you desire, I have prepared the following 

 account of the different methods of hatching the ova of 

 Salmonida, their origin, advantages and disadvantages. 



There are six methods of hatching the ova of Salmonidce : 

 the first five present more or less diiificulties, which have led me 

 to abandon them, and to make experiments suggested by my 

 own experiences ; these have resulted in the adoption of the 

 present hatching-box now in use at Burghley House. 



The first method used by Jacobi, a German, in 1763, was 

 to place in wooden boxes, having wickerwork ends (the bottoms 

 being covered with sand), any ova that might be obtained out 

 of the gravel in brooks, where the trout had spawned. This 

 sand was found to be too compact in its nature. Dom Peri- 

 choud, following in Jacobi's footsteps, first discovered the fact 

 that the ova could be expressed from the female fish, and arti- 

 ficially fecundated by using the milt of the male. He covered 

 the ova with gravel instead of sand, and this was found to answer 



