60f . FISH CULTUIlE. 



and feeding mucli more often, to fortify her system" 

 for the exhaustive process she has to go through, is 

 more readily caught. This argument might possibly 

 hold good with trout and greyling, hut it is scarcely 

 so reliable for salmon, as the great bulk of salmon 

 are taken by nets and cfuives, which are no re- 

 specters of sex, and where the sex has no choice 

 whatever. 



Take a male or female salmon, perfectly ripe for 

 the process, and the ripeness may be known, in the 

 male, by the milt running from the vent at the 

 slightest pressure, and in the female, by the ova 

 doing likewise, if she be very ripe. But it often 

 Occurs that though the female be quite ready to yield 

 her spawn, she will not give it at, the first pressure. 

 Now, if a fish be unripe, the belly is hard and tight, 

 and the mass of ova contained in it is immovable, 

 being still fixed to the membrane. In a trout, if it 

 be held up by the head, in the attitude shown in the 

 first figure in the frontispiece, the ova, if ripe, will 

 drop down in a mass towards the vent, distending the' 

 stomach somewhat in that region, as shown in the cut, 

 and the belly will feel soft, and the ova granular and 

 inovable under it. The operator would probably find 

 it somewhat difficult to hold a salmon in that con- 

 dition. In fact, if a salmon be large and vigorous, 



