60 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE, 



bottom up. The moss should then be gently shaken and 

 picked out that the eggs may fall to the bottom ; whatever 

 moss cannot be conveniently picked out with the fingers 

 can be floated and poured off by two or three washings, as 

 is done after taking the eggs from a trout, and before 

 depositing them in the trough. 



Mr. Ainsworth says : " The best contrivance for taking 

 the eggs from the trough in numbers, is a piece of fine 

 wire cloth six or seven inches square, turned up at the sides 

 and at one end like a dust-pan. In using it, place it on the 

 bottom of the nest and gently brush the eggs into the open 

 end with a feather or wing, then put the wire pan into a 

 dish of water and allow them to slide off. In this manner 

 they can be remove'd with ease and rapidity. The best 

 thing to examine a large number of eggs on, and see at 

 once all the imperfect and unimpregnated spawn, is a pane 

 of window glass with a tight wooden frame around it. Set 

 this with a half inch of water on it, in the light of a win- 

 dow, shading the side towards the window, so as to allow 

 the light to come up through the bottom of the pane, and 

 you can see every imperfect egg and pick them out. 



In counting them, a four-sided tin dish with sloping sides, 

 holding forty in a line lengthwise and twenty-five across, 

 can be used. Six eggs laid in a line measure a little over 

 or under an inch. If, therefore, the bottom of the vessel 

 used for counting is six and two-third inches long, by four 

 and one-sixth inches wide, it will take about a thousand 



