FOREST AND STREAM 
340 
For Forest and Stream. 
TO A CANARY. 
H AIL, tiny songster, in thy golden cage, 
Flooding the air with melody divine, 
What happiness, what rare content is thine? 
E’en in captivity thou dost not rage, 
As would thy mistress, did a hand restrain 
Her liberty, and shut her up like thee! 
Thy little breast holds naught ‘of jealousy; 
But all the day thou sing’st with might and main 
Of the sweet joy that thrills thee; and though none 
Shall lend a list’ning ear, thou carest not, 
Thou art not discontented with thy lot, 
Bat, swinging in the window where the sun 
Sheds warmth and gladness, uttering no cry, 
Thou still wilt sing and let the world go by. 
R. A. Wilson. 
T isff 
This Journal is the Official Organ of the Fish Cultur- 
,, ists 5 Association. 
K . —*— 
Trout Grove Fisheries. —This quite well-known estab¬ 
lishment is situated some two miles from Randolph depot 
and about a mile south of East Randolph, in Cattaraugus 
County. The main pond covers an extent of about five 
acres of ground; over one hundred springs have been 
counted. Scarcely any of the springs diminish their flow 
in the height of the summer, and the temperature of the 
water is unusually cold. A commodious hatching house, 
some 24 by 64 feet, is used, with properly arranged troughs 
and screens, and by means of syphons a constant and plenti¬ 
ful supply of water is had. The rearing ponds are numerous, 
and adapted to the ages of the .fish. The stock on hand at 
the Trout Grove Fishery at last accounts was as follows: 
Young fry, 200,000; yearlings, 20,000; two year olds, 2,000; 
three year olds, 400. In the larger pond are many very fine 
fish. Mr. Thomas, the Superintendent, has devoted a 
great deal of time and skill to his fish ponds, and has met 
with merited success. All the fish Mr. Thomas could 
raise were sold this spring at remunerative prices. The 
Trout Grove establishment is quite a recent undertaking, 
and when all the improvements are completed a large 
number of trout will be raised there, as the water is in the 
greatest abundance. We are indebted for many interesting 
facts in regard to Trout Grove to the Jamestown Daily 
Journal. 
The Benue Maritime et Colonial furnishes us with a sum¬ 
mary of the sea fisheries of France for 1872. The total 
product for the year amounts to 74,000,000 francs, 
showing an increase of 4,000,000. French fisheries are di¬ 
vided into two classes, those conducted on the banks of 
New Foundland and in Iceland, and those carried out on 
the coast of France. The products from the foreign sources 
of fishery are taken by 187 vessels, an increase of some 24 
vessels over 1871. The Iceland fishery employs 252 vessels. 
The shore fisheries of France yielded, in 1872, some 24,- 
204,000 francs. In a prior number we stated the care 
with which France prepared the statistics of her fisheries, 
and how Professor Baird was desirous that we should, in 
the United States, arrive at some determination of the 
kind and quantity of the fish caught on our shores. 
—The aquarium car arrived at San Francisco, June 12tli 
with eleven varieties of the fish on board in splendid order, 
and the expedition there is considered a great success. 
---- 
HATCHING WHITE FISH. 
I Clarkston, Mich., June 29, 1874. 
Editor Forest and.Stream:— 
Allow me to state through your columns as briefly as 
possible something of my discoveries in the modus ope- 
randi of hatching white fish, a native of this State; and as 
this species of fish has been found to be the most difficult 
of all the salmonoid family to successfully carry through 
the process of incubation, I deem it of sufficient import¬ 
ance to lay before your readers. 
About November 15th, 1869, through the kind assist¬ 
ance of Mr. Seth Green, I placed 50,000 white fish ova in 
my hatching troughs in spring water at a temperature of 
47 degrees Fahrenheit, at this place, where I was then 
hatching brook trout successfully. I soon discovered that 
these eggs were entirely different in their nature from those 
of the brook trout, for within two weeks’ time nine tenths 
of them had turned white and were worthless, and I was 
about to abandon them in despair. At this critical time 
Mr. Green came to my relief, and after a careful investiga¬ 
tion we found a small portion had indications of vitality in 
them, and he advised me to carefully remove all the good 
eggs’and by this means I succeeded in hatching about 
two thousand in good condition January 15. 
These fish were entirely different from the young trout 
when first hatched out, as the moment they emerged from 
their shell they darted off and exhibited a rapid motion in 
vfle water, while the latter were quite inactive owing to the 
fhDh that young trout retain a large umbilical sack which 
sustains them some sixty days without food, while the 
white fish have a very small appendage which is absorbed 
in about twenty days. These escaped from my charge 
through the meshes of No. 12 wire cloth down the stream, 
and I had no opportunity to experiment further with them 
that year. On the following November, 1870, Mr. George 
Clark, who is an intelligent and experienced fisherman, 
kindly aided me in securing the same number of the ova 
from the Detroit river that I took the previous year. I 
placed these in the same water as before and succeeded in 
hatching a much larger proportion; and from my previous 
experience I selected No. 40 copper wire cloth, which proved 
effective in retaining them in their troughs. This gave me 
an opportunity to use all the skill possible to keep them till 
spring. Soon after these were hatched James W. Milner, 
U. S. Deputy Fish Commissioner, visited my hatchery, and 
we decided that he should take home with him one hundred 
of these swift-motioned fellows,and the balance,being then 
some three thousand, were to remain in their hatching 
boxes. Our plan was to learn what artificial food would 
best sustain them till spring, as Mr. Green had not yet 
learned what_they required at this infantile period. All 
our efforts failed, as all died Within tour weeks, notwith¬ 
standing our constant watchfulness over them. 
This result quite puzzled me, and I began to study the 
causes that produced this failure, and as I knew that 
the water in which the parent fish naturally deposit their 
ova about the shoals of our great lakes becomes frozen over 
about the middle of November and remains so until about 
April first; it occurred to me that the low temperature of 
the water in which these eggs lay from the middle of No¬ 
vember till April first (being at a uniform temperature of 
from 82^ degrees to 38 degrees)retarded the process of their 
incubation to the season of the year when the ice leaves 
the shoals and the animalculse develops sufficiently to sus¬ 
tain them, which is about the time their umbilical sac, 
which is absorbed, naturally disappears. 
These ideas, which suggested themselves to my mind, led 
me to try practically and prove the truth of my theory. 
Consequently I caused to be erected a large hatching house 
in the fall of 1871, and took water from a pond raised on a 
small stream which became frozen over early in November 
and remained so until April, at which time they hatched 
out. The water that flowed over these eggs during this 
time stood at a’ uniform temperature of about 33 degrees. 
A much larger proportion of these ova hatched out than 
previously, and remained vigorous and healthy till the 
time they were planted in some of the desirable lakes of 
this county. A good number were also placed in the De¬ 
troit river. This natural and scientific method settled the 
question in my mind that I had discovered the only true 
mode that would result in perfect success. 
About the last days of February, 1873, I sent to the Dep¬ 
uty U. S. Commissioner at California over 300,000 well 
matured white fish ova under the auspices of Prof. Spencer 
F. Baird, U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, and 
James W. Milner, Deputy U. S. Commissioner,was present 
and assisted me in packing and shipping them in good con-' 
dition. The first lot of these ova, being 216,000, I regret 
to state were frozen in passing over the Rocky Mountains. 
The last lot, being 116,000, arrived at 4he place of their 
destination in good order. 
The next fall this State provided by law for the appoint¬ 
ment of a Board of Fish Commissioners, who made ar¬ 
rangements with me for the use of my hatching establish¬ 
ment, and employed me to take charge of it, and we suc¬ 
ceeded in placing some 1,700,000 white fish ova in my 
patent hatching boxes. With the aid of this improved 
hatching arrangement Ijwas enabled to hatch over 1,500,000, 
all in the best condition. These were distributed among 
194 lakes in different parts of the State during the month 
of April last. 
The above result shows a loss of less than 15 per cent, of 
all the ova placed in the hatchery, which, considering the 
uncertainties heretofore attending the incubation of this 
species of fish ova, it is believed is without a parallel in the 
world. I have retained one or two hundred of these fish 
in a small tank, and it has given me an opportunity from 
practical and scientific observation, of learning the nature 
of the food which sustains them during this infantile period 
of their existence, and in due time I hope to be able to re¬ 
port upon the discoveries I have noticed in my diary from 
time to time. At this date, June 28, these fish, now 79 days 
old, have obtained a length of one and one-lialf inches ; 
are active and remarkably rapid in their motion, and will 
weigh thirty times more than when first hatched out, and 
we hope further to be able to mark their various changes in 
growth from time to time. N. W. Clark. 
Charlestown, N. H., June 25th, 1874. 
Editor Forest and Stream:— 
May I take the liberty of calling your attention to a slight error (prob¬ 
ably a misprint) in your issue of June 18th? In answering the queries 
of a correspondent on the subject of traveling with live trout you an¬ 
swer “that the temperature of the water in which they are kept should 
he in the neighborhood of 65 decrees.” We never allow the tempera¬ 
ture to rise to 50 deg., and if possible keep it below 50 deg. I sent from 
the Cold Spring Trout Ponds to New York City, and from there to Oak¬ 
land, in New Jersey, a distance of over 350 miles, about two weeks since, 
1,666 yearling trout in five of our conical tanks, capable of holding 130 
gallons of water, and only two trout were lost in trausit. 
A few days since, in reading the French pamphlet published by the 
Societe d' Acclimatation of Paris, on wliat the fish culturists in America 
have done, I noticed that the Maine salmon, from whicli Prof. Atkins 
took spawn, are said to have been kept in pound for some months pre¬ 
vious to the spawning season. I have also noticed that every one who 
has spoken through the newspapers of the California salmon has men¬ 
tioned particularly the great size they had attained for fish of their age, 
their liveliness and fat growth, and that in these points they went far 
ahead of the Maine salmon. 
Now I know that the spawn of the California salmon was taken from 
fish that were seined while on their spawning beds,and the ova taken im¬ 
mediately from them, and would be glad to know if the different circum¬ 
stances under which the spawn from the two different kinds of fish was 
taken may not have had a good deal to do with the vitality of the young 
fish, oris the difference only owing to the fish being of two different 
species? I should be very glad to have the opinion of some intelligent 
fish cultunst on the subject. 
May not the fact of the Maine salmon having been kept (so to speak) 
in a semi-stagnant condition of life for these months before the spawn¬ 
ing season, have prevented the progeny from becoming: as full of vitality 
as they should be? Large numbers of both kinds were hatched in our 
hatching-house this last winter, and I observed a vast difference in them. 
Many of the Maine alevins clustered down against the screens, and. their 
yolk sac was continually being drawn through the wires and burst, in 
this way killing them, and leaving only the head and vertebrae on the 
inside of the screens. The California alevins were constantly strug¬ 
gling up stream and trying to jump very high cleats, and reach the fall of 
water at the head of the troughs, making so much noise about it as to 
tempt me to go and watch them to see what they were about. 
The French writer also spoke of the shad spawning, saying that the 
ova of shad had been found to be worthless, unless the parent fish were 
captured while actually upon their spawning beds. 
All these facts have made me think that keeping the breeding fish in 
confinement any length of time before the ova is taken, prevents the 
young fry from being as healthy as they should be. 
I have noticed a vast difference in the young of the trout. Those com¬ 
ing from parents fed entirely on curd being weak and puny, and having 
among them a large proportion of deformed ones, while those coming 
from parents fed mostly on meal were vigorous and well formed, with 
hardly a curved spine or double-headed one among them. 
F. M. Webber. 
V -- - 
\ Boston, June 26th, 1874. 
Editor Forest and Stream:— 
Captain Charles A. Ranlett and others,of Bellerica and Bedford, Mass., 
having petitioned the Massachusetts Commissioners of Inland Fisheries, 
praying that young salmon might be placed in the Shaushine River, and 
fishways be constructed for the passage of migratory fish, in answer to 
the first clause of the petition, Commissioner E. A. Bracket, Captain 
Ranlett and your humble servant left the State fishing hatching house at 
Winchester on Tuesday last, having two large cans of water containing 
12,000 young salmon. We rode to the John Cummings’brook, a lively 
tributary of the Shaushine, and placed there 6,000 young salmon, 600 of 
which were land-locked salmon. Going thence some three miles we de¬ 
posited the remaining 6,000 in what is called the Governor’s brook, also 
a clear, cold, brawling tributary of the Shaushine. The little fish soon 
hid themselves under stones and projections of sod, and will each have 
its little ieeding ground near by. The salmon were placed in the small 
brooks, that they might be protected from the larger fish. When about 
six inches long they'will drop down to the river. On the second year 
the migratory salmon will go over the dams to the sea, returning on the 
third year large fish. They will pass once up the fishways and seek 
their old home, where they were first deposited; finding the brooks too 
small they will push on up stream until suitable spawning grounds are 
reached, then returning to the sea again, completing the round of the 
law which the Lord has established in the existence of our dumb favor¬ 
ites, and furnishing food for all who seek them. J. a. O. 
FISHWAYS. 
Washington, June 22,1874. 
Editor-Forest and Stream:— 
Much disappointment has been expressed by piscicultural friends at 
the alleged or supposed failure of the fishways in the Connecticut at 
Holyoke, and in the Susquehanna at Columbia, Penn., the apparent apa¬ 
thy of the shad in regard to the ascent being considered indicative of a 
want of proper construction in the apparatus. 
There is another view to be taken in this matter. It is one of the ax¬ 
ioms of fish culturists, and that upon which the efforts at stocking riv¬ 
ers are essentially based, namely, that the fish return to spawn to the 
place where they were born, or where they were first introduced into the 
water. As far as my information extends, no young shad have ever been 
placed above the Holyoke dam in the Connecticut, and those hatched out 
at Newport, in Pennsylvania, (above the Columbia dam) have not had 
time to return from the sea. 
The efficiency of the experiment at Holyoke can only be determined by 
a trial, which were best made during the present season, namely, by 
planting a large number of young fish, say at Bellows Falls in the Con¬ 
necticut, and waiting the period of three or four years for the result. 
The shad hatched at Newport in 1873 will probably decide this question 
in two or three years’ time. I think it extremely probable that there is 
something in these considerations, and it will be well not to condemn 
fishways in general too hastily, as far as shad is concerned, but wait for 
the result of the experiment. Yours truly, Spencer F. Baird. 
hitmal ^mtory. 
THE GRAYLING IDENTIFIED. 
E have followed up the matter of the Michigan 
grayling from the date of its earliest introduction 
to the notice of naturalists, and have, we think, succeeded 
in establishing its identity as the true grayling, though 
some of our correspondents seem still inclined to reject the 
evidence. We have also discovered that the grayling is 
found in Montana, as well as in Michigan, and that it pro¬ 
bably exists in Wisconsin. We know that it exists in sub- 
Arctic circles. More recently, we have endeavored to com¬ 
pare it with the English grayling, in order to ascertain if 
it were indentical, or an entirely new species, and with a 
a view to consulting the best authority, sent what data and 
material we had to Jackson Gillbanks, Esq., for many 
years attached to the staff of Frank Buckland’s paper, 
Land and Water . As respects the relative proportions of 
the English and American grayling, referred to in the sub¬ 
joined letter, we will say that the fish in the engraving is 
much more slender than in life, and it was so remarked 
the instant it was received from the artist. We take much 
satisfaction in presenting Mr. Gillbanks’ letter to the notice 
of our readers:— 
Cumberland, England, June 16tli. 
Editor Forest and Stream :— 
Your number of Forest and Stream and letter of June 
4th just arived. If I had no hint whatever on the subject 
I should have pronounced the fish, so admirably depicted 
in your paper, to be the grayling, Salmo Thymallus , at once. 
Yarrel’s illustration is taken from a fish also ten inches 
long, which appears to be the average size of a well grown 
fish. It is some years since I had hold of a grayling, as 
there are none in the extreme north of England, but I am 
perfectly acquainted with them and their habits. They 
are numerous about Buxton in Derbyshire, and although 
very numerous when met with, they are very local. As 
far as I know all attempts to hatch them have as yet failed 
though tried with great perseverence. Their ova will not 
bear the slightest carriage. Some years ago some gentle¬ 
men took some fish from Derbyshire to Scotland and turned 
them into the Clyde. A year or two after, on enquiry, I 
was told they had multiplied amazingly, so as to supersede 
the trout. In other parts of England where they have 
been introduced into fresh streams, no matter how appar¬ 
ently suitable, contrary to the habit of trout, they keep 
moving down stream season by season, till at last they liave 
vanished. This fish has the peculiar advantage of being 
nearly always in season. The best months are October 
and Christmas. In England they require very fine tackle, 
a small fly made of a bluish feather from the inside of a 
sterling’s wing, is the favorite one in Derbyshire. But the 
most killing bait is the grasshopper on a small leaded i. e., 
weighted hook, “sink and draw.” I have compared your 
wo<7d cut with Yarrell, and other standard works, and find 
that your fish is somewhat slenderer than his, and has a 
larger back and tail fine in proportion, but not at all so 
different as to justify mein pronouncing them to be distinct 
varities. There is a much more marked difference in the 
common trout in different streams on my own estate with¬ 
in a circle of two or three miles. Anatomists insist that 
counting the fin-rays is the only true test of a distinct 
variety. Yarrell gives us these for our English fish:-—Dor¬ 
sal, twenty; Pectoral, fifteen; Ventral, ten; Anal, thirteen; 
Caudal, twenty; Vertebrae fifty-eight. I have been told 
there is a considerable difference in the appearance of the 
grayling of different rivers in the west of England,. where 
they are only to be found in any abundance, both in form 
and coloring, in my opinion an account of different 
geological conditions. I had a long article on the subject in 
Land and Water about a year ago, headed “Variation of 
Coloring in Trout.” Jackson Gillbanks. 
