106 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



" This was the mysterious secret of his success in 

 impregnating trout eggs, which puzzled beyond measure 

 everybody that, tried to imitate him, which every one 

 marvelled at, and no one could understand. Green 

 used to tell everything about trout breeding except 

 this, but this he kept to himself, and said it was as 

 good as a patent right to him ; and so it was. 



" The Russian or dry method of impregnating eggs 

 consists simply in taking both the eggs and the milt 

 in a dry pan. The pan will not, correctly speaking, 

 be perfectly dry, for some drops of water will fall into 

 it from the fishes manipulated ; but the pan should 

 have no water in it to begin with. In reflecting upon 

 this method for the first time, the objection rises 

 instantly in one's mind that the eggs will all be killed 

 by striking against the bottom of the dry pan ; but it 

 is the very singular fact that though the same eggs 

 would be destroyed at once by the same concussion 

 a week afterwards, or even twenty-four hours after- 

 wards, they do not suffer in the least from it at the 

 moment of extrusion from the fish. These and the pre- 

 vious facts here stated were confirmed this last season 

 by experiments of Commissioner Atkins of Maine, of 

 Mr. W. Clift of Connecticut, and of the writer in New 

 Hampshire, and are beyond dispute. 



"At the last meeting of the Fish Culturists' Associa- 

 tion, at Albany, we opened a box of about a hundred 

 trout eggs, taken by us on the Russian plan last 

 December, and gathered afterwards from the hatching 

 troughs without our knowledge of the percentage of 

 impregnation. Seth Green and others examined them, 



