50 
lucky fellow less strong than himself comes too near, 
he gets a pitching into, and sometimes very much 
scratched and torn. This seems to be his only occu¬ 
pation, at least so far as I have seen—the female 
always making the ridd. The spawning being finished, 
the male salmon passes over the ova and sheds the mil t, 
after which the female again throws herself on her side, 
repeats the undulating motion before mentioned, and 
turns the gravel over the newly deposited spavm. 
"When the fishes are left to spawn in the natural way 
a great quantity of the ova is of course lost, being 
liable to be carried away by floods, left high and dry 
by droughts, or devoured by other fishes and birds, 
and alas, too often by the parents themselves. As an 
instance of the amount of ova destroyed by other fishes, 
a common yellow trout weighing IJ lb. was taken at 
ALmond-mouth last year, having in his gaiUet no less 
than 350 ova. According to Messrs Ashworth and 
Buist, only one salmon egg out of every thousand 
deposited by the parent fish ever becomes a fish fit 
for human food. MTien spawning, the female is often 
surrounded by two or three males, who fight so with 
one another that they for the time seem to forget 
what they are about, and the ova is often left unim¬ 
pregnated altogether. 
Aow this can be all remedied by artificial breeding, 
and I will endeavour to explain the process as plainly 
as possible. We must first catch the female, and to 
prevent her depositing her eggs in a natural nest, we 
must take them from her, this is done by holding up 
the head of the fish—the vent of course being covered 
Avith water—the hand is pressed gently from the 
head downwards, when, (if the fish is ready) the 
spawn flows from her freely, we then take the male, 
and in almost the same manner get milt sufficient to 
impregnate the ova. The milt and ova are then 
stirred about gently for about a minute, when the 
milt is washed off, and the ova is put in tins to be 
conveyed to the nest provided for them, which at 
Stormontfield consists of 360 boxes. The size of the 
boxes’ inside measurement, is 5 feet lOJ inches long, 
IJ foot broad, and 1 foot deep. There are 12 boxes 
in each row, and 30 rows in all. The boxes are 
