IMPREGNATION OF EGGS IN TROUT BREEDING. 603 
amined, it will be found in the majority of cases that a very 
small percentage are impregnated (in one case standing as 
low as six per cent). While by the stripping process any- 
where from eighty-five to one hundred per cent. can be 
impregnated. If we consider that in natural spawning, the 
milt is ejected into comparatively swift water, which sweeps 
it almost immediately away from the eggs, we shall cease to 
wonder at the difference. Another advantage is that the 
eges in the stripping process are exposed to the milt of sev- 
eral males; and as the milt of one male will impregnate 
thousands of eggs, if only one male out of a dozen used be 
good, we may fairly expect that all the eggs in the pan will 
be impregnated. It is also an incidental advantage of this 
process, that as the fish are all handled the stripped fish may 
be put into a spare pond, so that they may not again run up 
into the raceway and hinder those about to spawn. For this 
reason and also because it is not intended that the fish should 
lay any eggs, a race for stripping purposes takes up com- 
paratively little room. On the other hand the disadvantages 
of the process are manifold; the principal one being that it 
is very difficult to take the eggs and milt at the precise time 
when the fish would naturally yield them. With much ex- 
perience, however, a trout breeder will succeed very well in 
doing this, and at our own place* we would even now about 
as soon have stripped eges of our own taking as any others. 
But a novice would not probably succeed very well. An- 
other disadvantage is that the handling of a struggling fish 
is a thing to be avoided if possible. Even the most experi- 
enced can hardly help killing a few, and the least experienced 
will kill many. The bruised fish do not show'the hurt at 
once, and will often live some weeks after receiving the 
injury. This difficulty increases with the size of the fish. 
The large fish which give the most eggs are the hardest to 
handle safely. Then the operation itself is not the most 
pleasant in the world. A ten or fifteen minutes immersion 
* Trout Ponds of Seth Green & Collins, Caledonia, N. Y. 
* 
