Flow to obtain it. 141 
superior race. Many a time I have started off at four or five 
o’clock on a November morning for a long and tedious walk over 
the Cumberland mountains, often rendered even dangerous by the 
accumulations of snow and ice met with at that season of the year. 
After fishing all day we would come back tired and weary at night, 
with perhaps a few thousands of trout eggs in the collecting cans, 
and often enough with none. These were laid down carefully on 
the grilles in the Troutdale Hatchery, where the work was carried 
on for fifteen years. There was an amount of enjoyment in it 
which it is impossible to describe—it must be felt to be under- 
stood—and an excellent opportunity was afforded of studying the 
habits of the various species or varieties of fish with which we 
came in contact. 
The information gained from practical sources in those days 
has proved of very great value, and has been of material assistance 
in the building up of a successful fish farm. It is now so exten- 
sive that it has been found quite impossible to get a good photo- 
graph of the ponds, but the accompanying illustration will give 
some idea as to the way in which they are laid out. I often smile 
as I remember the time when we hunted the trout in the wild 
mountain glens of Borrowdale and the neighbouring valleys in 
Cumberland, when, although armed with permission from riparian 
owners, we were loudly denounced by a certain class, many of 
whom ought to have known better, as poachers, etc. But out of 
it all has been acquired a mass of information which has enabled 
us to carry the work forward until it has assumed its present 
proportions. Instead of collecting ova from the natural streams, 
which at best is very arduous and costly work even when properly 
carried out, they are now taken in enormous quantities from fish 
reared in well-made ponds, which are entirely under control. Up- 
wards of a quarter of a million trout ova have been taken in one 
morning, and of coarse fish I have taken a million before breakfast. 
I have made these preliminary observations, in order that the 
uninitiated may at once realize to some extent the altered position 
in which fish-culture stands to-day, as compared with its position a 
quarter of acentury ago. The eggs now obtained from the domes- 
ticated fish referred to require to be built up for months before- 
hand in the ovaries of the fish, and great attention has to be 
