APPENDIX. 243 



covered up with gravel and are hatched in comparative 

 darkness. 



It may be of some use, particularly to those who are 

 interested in pisciculture, to note a few details connected 

 with the capturing of the gravid fish and the plan of 

 exuding the ova. practised at Tongueland. The river Dee 

 is tolerably well stocked with fish, as may be surmised from 

 the rent I have named as being paid for the right of fish- 

 ing. Mr. Grillone adopts the plan, now also in use at Stor- 

 montfield, of capturing his fish in good time — in fact, as a 

 general rule, before the eggs are ripe — and of confining 

 them in his mill-race till they are thoroughly ready for 

 manipulation. Last season — i. e., in November and De- 

 cember 1864, and January 1865 — as many as thirty-six 

 female fish were taken for their roe, the number of milters 

 being twenty-five, the total weight of the lot being 454 lbs., 

 or, on the average, six and a half pounds each fish. Ac- 

 cording to rule, the weight of the female fish taken having 

 been 283 lbs., these ought to have yielded 283,000 eggs, 

 but as several of the fish were about ripe at the time they 

 were caught, they spawned, naturally in the mill-race, 

 where the eggs in due time came to life. The plan of 

 spawning pursued at Tongueland is as follows : — Whenever 

 the fish are supposed to be ripe for that process, the water 

 is shut out of the dam, and the animal is first placed in a 

 box filled with water in order to its examination ; if ready 

 to be operated upon, it is then transferred to a trough filled 

 with water about three feet and a half long, seven inches 

 in breadth, and of corresponding depth, and the roe or 

 milt is pressed out of the fish just in the position in which 

 it swims. As soon as the eggs are secured, a portion of 

 the water is poured out of the wooden vessel, and the male 

 fish is then similarly treated. The milt and roe are mixed 



