Trout Breeding. 125 



was a barrier running around the box, backed in front 

 and rear by soil wiiich was thought to be the least affect- 

 ed by frost. 



The screens should be made with as large spaces be- 

 tween the slats or wires as the size of Ihe fish demands, 

 and it will be found convenient to have the outlet boxes 

 of the different ponds and the frames all of one size, so 

 as to be readily interchangeable. The wires or slats for 

 the fish of half a pound and over may have a half inch 

 space between them, and for this purpose well galvan- 

 ized iron wire is best, or, if not convenient, a screen can 

 be made of planed lath, set edgeways ; while for year- 

 lings well tarred wire cloth of four wires to the inch is 

 necessary, and for the fry during the first months at 

 least fourteen wires to the inch. Screens for the inlets 

 are best placed perpendicularly, in order that no trout 

 may lie under them and shoot up stream when the 

 screen is raised. The disposition of water to find its 

 own way, and that way being always different from our 

 way, combined with the disposition of trout, in their 

 younger days, to prefer any location rather than that 

 which we have provided for them, renders the subject 

 of screens and appliances for confining them a very im- 

 portant one to the fishculturist, and one liable to defeat 

 all his calculations and waste all his time, labor and 

 money, if not properly considered. I have kept sharks 

 and whales in confinement, and have seen the wildest of 

 beasts and birds so kept, but of all animals that man 

 confines there is none so uncertain to be found in the 

 morning, where it was apparently so secure the night 

 before, as a brook trout of an inch and a half long. It 

 is an impossibility to confine them in a stream, and very 

 difficult in a pond, as a crack or worm hole in a board, 

 or in the earth or masonry, will be found by a hundred 



