2i6 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Wat^r. 



tecting the water for a few years. They sweep nests 

 in the gravel, lay their glutinous eggs in them and 

 Watch the nests, fighting off all intruders and fanning 

 the eggs with their tails for circulation. The eggs 

 hatch in four to six days, according to temperature, 

 and remain a day or two on the nest, plainly visible as 

 a dark mass. Then, when the sac is about to be ab- 

 sorbed, they rise, and the old fish remains under them 

 until they disperse to seek food. 



We cannot take their eggs and hatch them, and as 

 the parents do so well at it there is little need to try it. 

 If young are needed for stocking, the nests should 

 be watched and the young taken in dip nets which are 

 lined with millinet or cheese-cloth. 



The small mouth is the best fish for streams. In 

 muddy, weedy ponds the flesh of the bass, and all other 

 fishes, is muddy in flavor, and in warm weather much 

 so. The two are about equal as game fishes, notwith- 

 standing a popular notion to the contrary. 



Lieut. -Col. Isaac Arnold, Jr., U. S. A., made ex- 

 periments in hatching black bass from 1879 to 1881. 

 He was then a major and was stationed at the armory 

 at Indianapolis, Ind. He let the fish spawn naturally 

 and removed the old fish when the young were hatched. 

 In the Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 

 for 1882, Col. Arnold says : 



"The male presses the ova from the female by a 

 series of bites or pressure along her belly with his 

 mouth, the female lying on her side during the opera- 

 tion. The male ejects the milt upon or over the roe 

 from time to time, and the spawning process lasts for 

 two or three days.'' 



A few years ago, at a meeting of the American 

 Fisheries Society, the Hon. Herschel Whitaker read 



