PROPAGATION OF TROUT IN AMERICA. 195 
place in the stream selected for the spawning-Led is very good while 
preparing the trenches for the spawn, but by the time the spawn is 
deposited the stream has become a torrent, and washes away the ova ; 
and yet just like a headstrong specimen of humanity — if the female 
makes up her mind that she will spawn at a place the rapidity of the 
flood of water never daunts her, though the swiftness of the current 
prevents the roe from ever touching bottom. Long Island is formed of 
a net- work tracery of trout streams, and yet there is but one establish- 
ment for the artificial propagation of trout on it. The proprietors and 
poachers of the island capture trout in Winter to stock ponds which, 
kept for the commercial advantages of letting them to be fished by 
amateurs with the fly, or the trout are fed and then netted and taken 
to market. There is no attention paid to the procreation of the s| eckled 
beauties. Many of the best preserves on the island are depleted of trout 
by sheer neglect. They should divide their ponds, and catch their large 
trout and use them for stocking subsidiary waters. In a word they 
should tap their dams with pipes and conduct water into spawning- 
boxes. Where their dams are near a road or turnpike, they should run 
the pipes underneath, or place their boxes along the embankment of 
the dam in such position as to form a rather swift flow of water 
throughout the line of boxes. Nothing can be more simple or safe 
The trout hatched in that way should be placed in small pondf, each 
brood by itself, thus necessitating three of these small ponds. As each 
brood arrives at two years of age it should be turned into the main 
preserve, and that preserve should be swept annually with a large - 
meshed net, and all the large trout so taken should be transferred to 
the pond of propagation, which should be watched during spawning- 
time — in September, October and November — and when found ripe for 
spawning they should be netted and the roe and milt taken from them 
and laid in the breeding-boxes. 
Whenever practicable, it is de-irable to take the trout from the 
spawning-beds by means ol nets, so as to insure the maturity of the 
ova. It can best be done in the night. So soon as caught, the fish 
should be placed in a large tub, or other vessel, partially filled with 
water, till a milter and spawner are taken. In ejecting the ova, the 
female should first be held over a bucket or large tin can half full of 
water— the lower end of the abdomen being inserted in the water in 
order to prevent the exposuie of the ova to the air. A gentle pressure 
of the hand from the thorax down each side of the abdomen will dis- 
charge the ova, if mature, wuthout the least injury to the fish. The 
water in the bucket should then be reduced to three or four quarts pre- 
viously to ejecting the milt of the male. In expelling the milt the 
course pursued is precisely the same as that just described, the lower 
end of the abdomen being in this case also inserted in the water. After 
stirring the contents of the bucket with the hand, the water should be 
poured off and fresh supplied several times in succession, until no trace 
VOL. vi. , ' u 
