68 
FOREST AND STREAM 
For Forest a/nd Stream . 
MUSING S. 
HEN ’mid the woodland glades we roam. 
Afar from crowded city home, 
Ear from the busy mill or mine. 
Ear from the gilded haunts of crime. 
We seem to rest from care and pain, 
And peace comes o’er the weary brain. 
Then musing here, and dreaming there, 
Deep drinking in the sweet pure air, 
Or stretched beneath some shady elm 
That waves its top in higher realm, 
And seems to us prone at its foot, 
Like a vast emerald parachute. 
Oh! lovely is the clear blue sky, 
And the white clouds which thro’ it fly 
All day, then gently as a nun, 
Wait benediction from the sun; 
Who, ere he doth retire to rest. 
Lays on each brow a golden crest*. 
And sweet to us the fluttering leaves, 
An<J the caresses of the breeze, 
And dear the gurgling brook, which laves 
‘ The-feet of flowers that o’er it wave; 
And sweeter yet the peace that falls 
When moonlight flows o’er twilight’s walls. 
When paved are the wooded aisles 
With russet, gold and scarlet tiles, 
And thro’ the royal autumn day, 
Resounds the hound’s deep mellow bay; 
With swelling Ijearts we quaff the air, 
And dream there ne'er was world so fair. 
But when from nature’s scenes apart 
Unworthy thoughts will upward start; 
Thoughts that beneath the forest’s shade 
Would never dare our hearts invade; 
Eriends in their thirst for gain grow gray 
And misery haunts the crowded way. 
Tet, after all, the grief we meet 
But makes the sweetness seem more sweet; 
The more we see of falsehoods blight, 
Makes truth more precious in our sight; 
And from life’s sea did no rocks rear, 
We carelessly our bark would steer 1 . Transit. 
This Journal is the Official Organ of the Fish Cul tw¬ 
ists’ Association. 
PRACTICAL FI SH CUL TURE.—NO. 5. 
* HANDLING SPAWN. 
A FTER taking the eggs either on the screens or artifi¬ 
cially, as described in the two last articles, they re¬ 
quire washing. If they have been taken by hand, all that 
is necessary is to free them from the mill by changing the 
water in the pan several times after allowing them to re¬ 
main undisturbed for half an hour from the time of adding 
the milt. To clean eggs taken from the screens is much 
more of a job as they are found mixed with more or less 
dirt consisting of sand, sediment, small stones, bits of rot¬ 
ten wood, decaying vegetation, and perhaps fine feculent 
matter; in fa6t everything that is carried down stream by 
the current and is fine enough to pass through the upper 
screen. 
The first point is to gradually raise the temperature of the 
water in the pan which came from the pond, to that of the 
spring which supplies the hatching house, if there is any 
difference between them; do this by allowing a small stream 
to flow in for a few minutes when a stronger head can be 
turned on and much dirt will run off. Trout eggs are 
somewhat heavier than water, and if care is used they need 
not go over with the dirt, but it is well to have another pan 
below to catch any that might escape from a new hand; 
the pan is then taken away from the stream, and by a few 
gentle shakes, all the eggs, gravel, &c. are deposited on cme 
side with the stones at the bottom, when by tipping it the 
other way, the eggs flow off and the heavy substances re¬ 
main; these can be swept over the side with a feather. 
The hardest things to remove are the particles of water- 
soaked wood, which are aboql the size and same specific 
gravity of the eggs; to get rid of these, get everything on 
one side as before and pour off most of the water, then tip 
hack very gently, leaving eggs and dirt out of water, after 
which support the pan steadily in that position and feather 
rthe eggs down the sloping bottom and brush the dirt back, 
after which pour the eggs in a clean pan, and if necessary, 
repeat the operation or raise them as they may seem to re¬ 
quire. To feather them in this manner requires a skilled 
hand and a delicate touch, which ' only practice can give, 
and the beginner will often find his eggs and dirt mixed by 
a careless movement just as they were about separated. I 
have confidence that before another season I will have a 
device for washing eggs that will save much time and 
trouble, and if I do, the readers of Forest and Stream 
will be advised in time to use it, which they can do freely 
as it will not be patented, as seems to be the fashion to do 
with every little thing that is originated now-a-days, 
whether it has cost any outlay of brains or not. In pour¬ 
ing spawn from one vessel into another always dip the edge 
of the one containing the eggs under water before pouring 
them out, as it does not hurt an egg to fall any distance in 
water, but it is easily killed by pouring through the air and 
striking the surface of water. 
An unimpregnated egg is easily killed—if it ever lived— 
by handling, and many of them show, both after washing 
and the day following, that they could not stand such 
rough usage, but they are always ready to die, and it is 
only a question of a few days with them at most; the same 
thing is observable in packing them for shipment. There 
are several articles m use among fish culturists for remov¬ 
ing dead eggs, fish, &c. from the troughs and pans, some 
prefer a bulb syringe, and other a sort of spoon, made of 
fine wire and set in a wooden handle, but nippers are in 
more general use; these are sometimes made of a slip of 
steel and are very handy. I have usually made them of a 
slip of whalebone about ten inches long, bent in the middle 
around a block, the ends nicely tapered down to a little 
spoon-shaped cavity of half the size of an egg. I have 
seen very nice ones made of cedar, sawed up like a clothes 
pin; but the best pair I ever saw are now in my hatching 
house; they are made of two pieces of wood about five 
inches long, with the upper ends beveled so that they touch 
for about an inch; they are bound together with thread, 
and the tapering ends are finished with a loop of fine brass 
wire neatly whipped with silk. The long taper gives a 
‘very delicate grip, and I can not only pick up a live egg 
with them without injury, but I believe I could also pick 
up a thousand fish with the sac on without injuring ten of 
them. This instrument is used in the most delicate oper¬ 
ations that the fish culturist has to perform, and therefore 
when he finds a pair whose delicacy exceeds that of any 
previously used they become dear to his piscicultural heart, 
and while any of his other implements can readily be re¬ 
placed, the loss of his favorite nippers seems almost irre¬ 
parable. 
Trout spawn is packed for shipment by express in tin 
boxes, three inches in diameter, and as many in depth, the 
bottom of the box is perforated to drain the water off, 
which, if allowed to remain without circulation, would kill 
the eggs A quantity of soft living moss, such as can be 
obtained from the swamps, is procured, well washed, after 
which the green fibres are cut off with scissors and the 
roots and dead parts thrown away, the bottom of each box 
is covered with a layer of this moss and the box is then put 
in a pan of water, a thousand eggs are measured and put in 
a dipper and a layer of eggs put on the moss and so on, 
moss and eggs alternately for three or four layers, after 
which the box is removed from the water to drain, this 
settles it down much, and it is then filled with more moss 
lightly pressed down until full, when the cover is put on 
and tied down firmly. The box or boxes are then 
packed in a box or pail of sawdust which keeps 
them from changes of temperature, are marked “fish 
eggs, handle carefully, keep cool, but do not freeze,” and 
delivered to the Express Company. A fiffli egg will not 
live in. water that does not contain oxygen any more than a 
fish will, and the living moss not only furnishes the egg 
with a soft cushion to protect it from sudden jars, but keeps 
the shell moist and furnishes it with the requisite oxygen 
to sustain it. That it does it well is beautifully illustrated 
by the fact that the process of hatching is not at all inter¬ 
fered with by this packing; to prove this I packed a lot 
some years ago and left them in the hatching-house for two 
weeks, and after replacing them in the troughs, found that 
they hatched at the same time that the remainder of the lot 
from which they were originally taken did. 
There are other methods of packing, as using flannel 
stretched on frames, instead of moss, but never having had 
any practical experience with them, I cannot say as to their 
merits. The plan described above is the only one I have 
ever used, and of the many lots of eggs that I have packed 
and shipped, I have never had a box spoiled; the only ob¬ 
jection to this method which has been sought to be over¬ 
come by those who have used flannel, wire, &c. is, that of 
keeping the eggs free from the particles of moss and dirt 
which will remain after the most careful washing, and Mr. 
Theodore Lyman obviated this by enveloping each layer of 
•eggs in a fold of mosquito netting. 
On receiving a package of eggs by express, take them to 
your hatching house, if you have one, or if not, put them 
in the cellar or apy other place that will keep them as the 
directions say, “cool, but do not freeze,” and do not open 
the pail or box until all is ready to put them in the troughs; 
be very sure not to put them in water, for if you do they 
will surety die. Caution on this point is most especially 
necessary, for it is the most natural place in the world for 
a novice to think of putting them to keep over night. But 
when the troughs are all ready, raise the water , in them to 
about rwo inches, and take a deep pan full of water, and 
.after removing the tin boxes from the saw dust, wipe them 
off and put them in the water upside down, remove the 
cover and lift off the box, remove all the large bunches of 
mpss and wash away the rest as described above, dip the 
edge ' of the pan under the water in the trough and pour 
them in, distribute them evenly with a feather and let the, 
water down. In all operations with spawn it should be 
moved under water; avoid sudden jars and changes of tem¬ 
perature. An expert will by a few strokes of a feather, 
bring all the eggs in one compartment of a trough into a 
pile in the centre and distribute them again by a few more 
without touching an egg, and as they are moved entirely 
by currents of water they are not injured. Great care must 
be used in the beginning not to kill two eggs with the nip.- 
pers while taking out one already dead; after you have ac¬ 
quired experience in handling them you can touch them 
with the feather or even push them aside with the nippers 
without injury, but at the start you will find that they are 
easily killed. An egg that is killed does not show it imme¬ 
diately, in fact, it seldom does, but a man has been known 
to keep on killing a number of eggs one day and picking 
them out the next, until he had nearly depleted his trough, 
when he thought that “those eggs were a bad lot.” If eggs 
are only to be transported a short distance and carried by 
an interested party, then they may be taken in water which 
can be aerated or changed, or they may be packed in moss 
in a basket. Fred. Mather. 
LETTER FROM SETH GREElN. 
THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS AND EARLY EXPERIENCES 
^ OF A PRACTICAL FISH-CULTURI8T. 
M Y first attempt at taking brook trout spawn was in 
1864. I took a few thousand daily for sixteen days 
On the seventeenth I made up my mind that I could tell 
which spawn was impregnated and wdiich was not. I 
counted several hundred and found that I had twenty-five 
per cent impregnated. I was sure I had to pick out all of 
the bad ones. I did not like the job. About that time Mr. 
Ainsworth came to my place. I told him what I had dis¬ 
covered. He said that twenty-five per cent was a good per¬ 
centage as ever had been hatched. I was not long in mak¬ 
ing up my mind. If that was the best that could be done 
I should not stay in the business long. That nightT 
thought it over and took a, common sense view of it. I 
had used a good deal of water, and but little milt. I made 
up my mind to try a little water and a good deal of milt. 
I found when sixteen days had come around that I had 
ninety-five per cent impregnated and even better. I kept 
using less and less water until I used scarcely any. I 
kept it a secret as long as I was in the spawn-selling busi¬ 
ness; every body wanled my spawn. I sold a great many 
and my secret was as good as though I had a patent for it,’ 
I will tell you how I discovered that the sun would kill 
spawn. The spawn in one of my troughs kept dying and 
in all the others they were good. I picked them out for 
several days and tried several experiments, but it was of no 
use, the spawn kept turning white. So I thought I would 
leave it for two or three days. The third day I learned the 
cause. The sides of my trough were six inches high, and 
the side shaded one half of the trough, and the shady side 
was all good, and where the sun hit they were all bad. I 
left them a couple of days and scooped them out and shaded 
my window, and I did not have any more trouble from the 
sun. One of the one hundred and one difficulties I had to 
overcome was rats. They left their tracks and I caught 
them; I took 304 trout spawn out of one of their stomachs. 
I must stop telling you the difficulties I had to overcome 
or I shall not have time to tell you about anything else. 
The year 1867 the Commissioners of Fisheries of four of 
the New England States came to my place and wished me 
to go to Holyoke, on the Connecticut River, and see if I 
could make a success in hatching shad artificially. I agreed 
to go. I arrived at the fishery at South Hadley dam and 
told the people that I had come to hatch shad artificially. 
They thought I was crazy and treated me accordingly. My 
first experiment in the use of hatching apparatus was to 
build the same kind of troughs that I used for hatching 
trout, with the exception that I slanted some of them a 
great deal more than I did others. I put the spawn in the 
troughs and I found that in the troughs that had the most 
fall the spawn floated down and out of the end. That was 
the first time that I had discovered how light the shad 
spawn was. It is as light in the water as a bubble is in the 
air. The next morning I came to see my troughs; they 
were nearly all broken down by some malicious person. I 
fixed some of them so that I kept the spawn in the trough, 
the next day they were nearly all dead. I could see the 
fish begin to form, but it was suffering for lack of circula¬ 
tion of water. The next day they were all dead. I saw 
what I had to contend with. I saw that the spawn needed 
a great circulation of w r ater, and the difficulty was to get 
some thing that would give them the circulation and not 
float the spawn away. The second day I had a dozen dif¬ 
ferent kinds of hatching apparatus.. All failed until the sixth 
day, when I was standingln the water with a candle box 
with a sieve bottom, and tipping it one way and another 
until I tipped the lower edge so that the current struck the 
bottom. The spawn began to boil up and kept in motion. 
The mystery was solved ! The second day the fish slewed 
life in the eggs, and the next day they hatched. I made 
two trials to see what percentage I could hatch. I put ten 
thousand"eggs in the box and hatched all but seven eggs. 
The next trial I hatched all but ten. The Commissioners 
and everybody was delighted—myself in particular. In 
about fifteen days I hatched fifteen millions, and in 1870 
the Commissioners of Fisheries reported that there was 
sixty per cent more shad in the Connecticut River than 
there was in the year 1802, and I believe the fishing has 
been as good every year since. 
In 1869 I experimented in hatching whitefish. I took 
the spawn in the same manner that I do the trout, except 
that they have to be stirred gently for twenty minutes to 
keep them from sticking together. - I have hatched a good 
many every year since that, time. I hatched them the three 
first years on gravel and on trays four inches deep in the 
trough. Last year Mr. M. G. Holton invented a hatching 
box that will be the means of stocking all of our great lakes 
with whitefish and salmon trout, equal to their best day, 
and I believe it can be done in four years. It saves nine¬ 
teen-twentieths of the room in the size of the house, and 
can be taken care of with one half the labor required for 
any hatching apparatus that I have seen. I have used ten 
of Holton’s boxes in our State Hatching House this winter, 
and find them a great success in hatching salmon, salmon 
trout, brook trout, and whitefish. 
I have hatched fifteen different kinds of fish artificially, 
viz., brook trout, white fish, herring, shad, Otsego bass, 
wall-eyed pike, salmon trout, salmon, red side suckers, 
creek suckers, shiners, white and yellow perch, mullet, 
striped bass, frogs and lobsters. . 
—We learn from Caledonia that all the whitefish at the 
State Hatching House have been distributed. There a, 
plenty of salmon trout and a few thousand Calitorn 
salmon left. 
