Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003232687 ‘ornell University Library Tin "KN ‘WOMAV]T ONTAdS GIOD LV AUANDLV]E] BLVLG 4O AOIUALNT MODERN FISHCULTURE IN FRESH AND SALT WATER BY FRED MATHER Author of ‘Men I Have Fished With” FORMERLY ASSISTANT TO THE U. S. FISH COMMISSION, LATE SUPERINTENDENT OF THEN. Y. STATE HATCHERY AT COLD SPRING HARBOR, LONG ISLAND, WITH A CHAPTER ON WHITEFISH CULTURE BY HON. HERSCHEL WHITAKER, FISH COMMISSIONER OF MICHIGAN, AND A CHAPTER ON THE PIKE-PERCH BY JAMES NEVIN, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE WIS- CONSIN FISH COMMISSION. ILLUSTRATED ors NEw YORK FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY 1900 EY. COPYRIGHTED 1900, BY FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY. tif TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE, Why the Book Was Written.............cccceeeeceeee 9 A Glance at Fishculture........... 0. .cc eee ceceeceeaes 13 SECTION I. TROUT BREEDING. CHAPTER I. TntrOduction: « swecegae ve eee ees 45 sismuemcoiuens 6088 ee wi oarene 22 Water Supply iis tsa! as-2-c canes sauqeieia n.d oieg-ae Sanna owes 23 Pollution: Of Waters sii siec esjaung nenadiehevee cided ea atnerewie 24 A Word About Trout. cccoesss esses ec ceccceteeeenesce 30 Flow Natité Does Tt. ic ccs iecnassectngy cas cee eeeees see. /3E AE ges of Vroutisaas cvcecdavak- oe lianas lin vo caaeGae meds a 34 Marketable. Trout. nssienie oes cconneaieseunass gaeas saaaere 35 CHAPTER II. In the Hatching House............ ccc cece cece cee eueee 40 Trough for Young Salmonide............... 0.0. e eee 47 Why Do We Use Coal Tar?......... cece cece ee eee eee 48 Fatehing: SE raysis. cui+ 3 vue eeaine ei ade date delaware eb sauce 50 Preparing for Hatching.......2..cccs0ecseeuvenseeeena 52 CHAPTER III. Trout Eggs—Distinguishing Sex in Fishes............ 56 Taking Trout Ee esc o's stain sisters oe o'1a aarejeeans 60 Spawn from Wild Trout............cce cece eee eee eee 66 “Number of Eggs in Trout............ 2. cece ee cece eee 70 Packing Eggs for Shipment. ag ERs EEA R SY Raa 72 2 Table of Contents. CHAPTER IV. PAGE. Care of Trout Eggs...-..-eeccee cece erence ee seen en eee Z Tools of the Craft....-...cecce cece ester eee ee cece reces 8 Hatching in Bulk.......--.- seen eee e etter eee e rec ees 3 CHAPTER V. Care of Fry... cece cece cece eee reece ete en ee enn eennee 86 CHAPTER VI. Feeding Fry...-..s see ce cece tec e cece ene en ee tennaes 92 How Others Feed Fry..........-- Seger segs ese 8 Comments on the Methods of Feeding...............-- IOI Introducing New Blood.........--+eee cece eee eee eens 102 Growth of Fry....... ce cece ccc e eee e rene eee ene esses 103 Automatic Feeders...... 2. ccc cece cece eee reer eee eeeee 104 Putting Out the Babies........---.0--- se eee eee eee eee 105 CHAPTER VII. Ste ais ~ Gaccaiesed! du da eei a nicdin nue ae she ots Womens Ee ee 6 107 CHAPTER VIII. Ponds cesta th iets s Se vac ees 112 Large Single Ponds...........-.0eeee eee 115 Ponds, it Series sec tanwcswcrus ccas sa masnes 118 DT ANTUS: eee se cee o dua Sastel Seeheshlage taetinnter orate Cigletgr Sen 121 Danis: 4 45.2 scene weds siete we Ss eee ees se ‘ 123 Sereéns, tor: Ponds sccu iisteicuk one aneiuugas dee sansew 123 CHAPTER IX "HEMPEFACURES: -cissuatescare § econ ceiesunatsindada ada Peyowene sens 127 CHAPTER X. Food for Adult Trout—Mussels............... cee ee eee 128 SOlte ‘Clans. .cesantis ance as beac AG shack Secchi -. 129 Horse. Meatisacuscude os secadtdvncawacs 130 Beef Lights and Maggots. 130 Bish: 3 seaiemian geatsi oe eb ehascds even ledaaea eed cle ara 131 Ta SERS! cap tentiins eo 21048 aut sence dnasabiiata ator ont eee ees 132 Natural: FOOGSic:..< sia sone sete eis Someta as 132 How They Feed in Japan. ...... 0.0... ccc cece eee eee 134 Patent: ROOdSeicccnc vax tea monsdsin oudwene aciacabentncc: 136 What Others Say About Food ea Table of Contents. CHAPTER XI. Planting” Bryer istcns sien asia as ayes eos eas SUMO ee Stock: Heavily cee send oe soe eon egate ne kmerede eee oe hime to. Plant: Pry sses sisadeuaa dv cette aecwtiesaee boo CHAPTER XII. Transplanting Adult Fish................eeeceeeec ae SECTION II. OTHER TROUTS AND THE SALMONS. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. Other Trouts—Brown Trout...........ccc.ceeeueeee Growth of Brown Trout........... cece eee c eee e eens Rainbow: “EROUts ss ices saa gisa aciavergunaidua ces 's siotsk ya dst area The Rambow ‘in, Eneland:. scscsccowitiess e403 suas watson Teake. Droutunsodehcas ceeeones noe rset Gee ners ee ewes FAY bite PUSH tae Sofas goa casei essa atmatietetanacele bo dob ee Snsuneen Shad “aid, Alewiles. . sas0 coc amie h aes Wh eee needa ene Shad and Stripéd Bass. .i3 scctenwsaascwren bos aie w CHAPTER XVI. Barren Trout and Annual Spawncrs.......eccceeeeees SECTION III. OTHER SALMONIDZ., CHAPTER XVII. Grayling .....eeee eens iia igibldisciod, Wekad. Si vale buslanwawelale naar ese 4 Table of Contents. CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE, Whitefishes .......00e- cece creer ee eee eee ee ceo 8 181 CHAPTER XIX. The Whitefish and Its Culture........--+-seereeeeeeces 182 | SECTION IV. OTHER FRESHWATER FISH WITH FREE EGGS. CHAPTER XX. Pike, Pickerel and Mascalonge............. cece ceeeoes CHAPTER XXI. Seas Sis 2)c eases ate a Sue ea etasbeedlnatie out ade Aue in gnataawane Sie, Seace ne Shad Fry Across the Atlantic...........ccccee ce eeeeeee The Bell and Mather Hatching Cone................++ The Chase’ Jatiiasnvesevagiaetstewawe dames ie coe s ele The McDonald Jaty ccciwanis enaicn sae damaredetie veins cee CHAPTER XXII. Striped Bass or Rock Fish ee ee es SECTION V. ADHESTI"E EGGS. CHAPTER XXIII. The Adirondack Frostfish CHAPTER XXIV. Ml t. waviserean aw Saale da New Fintodiee Fete ere wes ee se recarscerccce 210 Table of Contents. 5 CHAPTER XXV. PAGE. The. Black Basses). ccc. nccoasies a egendasd Aemaseen’ Staur 213 Simall=MOwehy jeciecacd cad cases dactcvos aew an oa Sach Stans aces 254 Big= Mouth: we cnsisesa 4s diegaeni wk imide wee awehaamueas 214 Black: Bass’ Cultures song sccinawanaceonxeedss Gieseceus aed 218 The: Crappiess 1.40 vt cuuaeaeidn st aaneaess Gngoemedaws nes 221 Small-Mouth Crappie Big-Mouth Crappie.. 222 Culture of Crappie... 222 Names: vcsdversss6kage aeeoseae He Vay tu 4:8 Vac eeREA Ra eRe 224 Value of the Crappie: cscccssacascnveasssa@eaueeeevnes 224 FV Ait). as sseias esses o-cop Rosetti ecanctan ga ldan See abies Rae Ra AUTO aE 227 CHAPTER XXVII White Perchossiesdcisecaisuaiey dees ea ads aeieewudnn eves 228 CHAPTER XXVIII The. Pike: Perel icccescaasies oh cde deat saetenganwenees 230 WealleByed Pikes: ss.0.c b:c.duecves agveusaisd oe.d: oh bia .mue 5 oud aeonevecasena ieee 230 Whe: Sausers 3c. we Mie kas og bea ae Le emirates 232 Hatching Wall-Eyed Pike Eggs.................20-00- 232 CHAPTER XXIX. Cat Pishieccii ics imsscsavedanyesseas soa ceeaweeweewes 230 CHAPTER XXX. Garp ¢ cedudione eaeieiseg ids Gla tiensuninys Bes oe BER eee Sa 241 GCastrating® Carpe sy vis scaciousiege i dake eds eeu saeeiile 242 CHAPTER XXXI. he Alewivesicccsunead oien cde ae husanin ad as enaeans 243 CHAPTER XXXII. SHB CO sis sd eres cadacen cas Soe tes HomeneNER atee eee es 245 SPA ae Perel ese sie howd edaubonomanieiee 245 6 Table of Contents. SECTION VI. PARASITES, DISEASES AND ENEMIES. CHAPTER XXXIV. PAGE, Parasites: sec cnadancw oa ode p00 065 CBR ee ag gee cate as Ailes 250 External Parasites... 0.0... ccc cece cece eee eer eee eeees 251 Internal Parasites. ........-. eee ee eee e ere tee teeee 254 DiS@asese so .GNi cosaracacsre-eumriralee idle a Osis basen eee Tins 255 Ay Dead: sPOrsecacaae wstiestopsoss oieoare als aareneanainite on: ece8 om 257 Fish That Die After Spawning. .........-0eeeeeeeeeeeee 2590 An” Fe pidemiGy% dees. ave ana aoeliae BOs a dere anno aualaroon ier acne 260 Enemies: ciaueindsa we anaoe oelens ooh eeameenetna eeeuees 267 Mash, 52 Gnmcals cit oauratnonk veloee ike bee eeliane soe ake ce 268 Reptiles and Batrachians.....20s0caseseees e¥es osaeres 260 A Platits : ~ i“) Cy “he L.| | ste | iietlis «lw | Teo agua bigs + lA Door’ ® ‘8 ae NS |rm. w w w ~~ 30 FEET PLAN oF HATCHERY WITH 12 TROUGHS; capacity 30,000 each in single layer. A, sink for washing; B, closet; S, stove; WW, windows. nel. Or the water may flow through sand and gravel, according to the nature of the material to be filtered out. There should be a screen at the head of each trougk to prevent stoppage at the outlet. CHAPTER 111, TROUT EGGS.—DISTINGUISITING SEX IN FISHES. It is with the fishes as with the birds: some species show sexual differences at a glance at all times, some Trout Breeding. 57 only during the breeding season, and others are so nearly similar that except for the protruding abdomen of the gravid female the sex can be distinguished only by dissection. A few, as the sharks and rays, have as distinct marks of sex, as do mammals, such as “claspers,” spines on head and fins, etc.; others, as the Embiotocoids, or vi- viparous fishes, have a different structure of the anal fin, while the great majority of fishes, especially the fresh- water kinds, have merely a brilliancy or intensity of color during the pairing season, which is invariably con- fined to the males. There is a very common notion prevalent that goldfish can be distinguished by the dorsal fin, that of the male being shorter than that of the female—that is, having not so many rays; but this is entirely groundless. The dorsal fins of this species, Carassius auratus, are very variable, as in fact the entire fish is, but this variation does not indicate sex in the least, and I do not hesitate to say that this fish is one whose sex cannot be told except by dissection, save when the female is distended with eggs. The little Cyprinodonts, killey fishes, show during the spring and summer such great differences between the dandy male and its quaker-like mate that they might be mistaken for different species, while most of the percoids, as perch, bass, sunfishes, etc., simply show a difference in the intensity of the colors. In some of the sticklebacks, as Eucalia inconstans, Jordan, the male is gorgeous in red and green during the breeding season, while the more sober bridegroom of the four-spined variety, Apeltes quadracus, contents himself with a small pair of crimson ventral fins. Most of the cyprin- oids, at other times indistinguishable, can be recognized during the breeding season by brightly-colored fins. 58 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. The same may be said of the brook trout; but trout breeders learn to separate the sexes at other seasons by their general appearance without being able to describe exactly how. An old male trout is readily determined by its lank sides and general air of a dilapidated roue, but a vigorous male of three years old before putting on his autumnal dress is very like the female, and is only to be distinguished by a trained eye, and even then mistakes occur. It is a matter of doubt if the yearlings can be separated by sexes with anything approximating a certainty. The males of a northern sea fish closely related to the smelt, and known as the capelin, Mallotus zillosus, are said to be provided “with a ridge of closely- set, brush-like scales, by the aid of which two males, one on each side, hold the female, while she runs with great swiftness on the sandy beach and there deposits her spawn,” a clear case of polyandry, which is exceptional among fishes, which vary more in their methods of re- production than the members of any other class. The well-known hooked lower jaw of the male Atlantic sal- mon, Salio salar, is only a nuptial appendage, which is afterward absorbed; but in several of the Pacific species of salmon this is a permanent mark of the male, and from this feature they have received from Profes- sors Gill and Jordan the generic name of Oncorhyn- chus, and have been removed, in their revision of the Salmonide, from the genus Salmo. To this genus be- long the so-called “California salmon,” now O choui- cha of the new nomenclature, and four other species. Among the strikingly formed and brilliantly colored tropical fishes there are often marked differences in the sexes, both in structure and color, and one known as the gemmeous dragonet, Callionymous lyra, has been described by Linnzeus, and several subsequent natural- Trout Breeding. 59 ists, as two distinct species, as they not only differ in the size and shape of the fins and the hues of the body, but also in the proportional size of the head and mouth, and even in the position of the eyes. As has been shown, there are slight, if any, differences between the sexes of our fresh water forms, except at the breeding season, when they are manifested principally by color. There is, however, always a difference in size. for in no species with which I am familiar does the male fish ever attain the extreme bulk that the adult female does. This difference is more remarkable in some species than in others, but I do not hesitate to assert that it exists in all. In the little “Killey,” referred to above, the female is twice as large as her mate, and the striped bass, or Rock, is another example; all the large ones, from forty to a hundred pounds, or more, are females. How large the male rockfish is found I cannot say, but I incline to the opinion that specimens weighing above thirty pounds are rare. The male brook trout begins to grow a brighter red on the sides as the water cools in October, in New York, and as he ripens this becomes brilliant. Then, if not old enough to be disfigured by a pronounced hooked jaw, he is one of the most beautiful of all our fresh-water fishes. If, however, he does not find a mate, or is driven from her by a stronger fish, his un- expended force manifests itself by another change. The crimson side fades into a drab, or buff, and the flat edge of the white belly is bordered with a broad black line. Such a fish will yield milt at the slightest touch, and it is the best of all milt, for it is dead ripe. Large males, those of three or four pounds, seldom get in this state, and I don’t care for them as breeders. It I were breeding trout as a private enterprise, no 60 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. fish over three years old would be kept. That is, a fish hatched in March, 1890, wou!d spawn in November, 1891, when twenty months old, and would give more or -less eggs, according to her growth, but should be just the right size for market. A few thrifty breeders can be kept with profit another year, when they will yield three or four times the amount of eggs that they did a twelvemonth ago; but then they should go to market the next spring and make room for younger stock, for their market value is decreasing in proportion to their size, as I have shown under the head of ‘Marketable Trout.” TAKING TROUT EGGS, In an old English cook-book by a Mrs. Glass, she begins telling how to cook a hare, with the words: “First catch your hare.” The trout culturist in quest of eggs may follow the sage advice of Mrs. Glass. But, when the trout is caught, he must pause. Eggs are desirable, but are worthless unless they are fully ripe; and, if the eggs are not ripe, the mother will surely be killed if they are forced from her. A male fish may sometimes be ripped open and his rnilt teased out in water, but no such Cesarian operation will vield young from the female trout, and in all trout work, extending over half a century, not a troutlet can say, with Mac- beth, “I was from my mother’s womb untimely ripped.” The trout are either netted in ponds or streams or entrapped in spawning races, which are covered grav-. elly runs, and will be described under the head of “Ponds.” As our brook, brown, rainbow and most. other trout spawn in the daytime, the early morning is ’ Trout Breeding. 61 best to take the eggs of such fishes as are ready to “spawn on that day, leaving all others for a future day. The lake trout, improperly called “salmon trout,” S. namaycush, spawn at night, and as they often live in the same lakes, and sometimes have their spawning grounds in common with the brook trout, their differ- ent hours of spawning prevent hybridizing, for milt is sterile after being in water a few minutes. In taking eggs from a covered raceway we dropped a screen at the lower end, threw off the covers and netted the fish into tubs of water for examination and assorting. The males are put together, the females that appear to be ripe go in other tubs, while those not nearly ripe are returned to the pond. The ripe female has a soft abdomen and the vent is swollen, protruding and red. Here is the delicate point: to judge the amount of pressure needed to start the eggs. Her tail is taken in the left hand and bent upward, the right hand holding the head with a grip of thumb and the three last fingers on the bony arch back of the gills; the forefinger is then free to stroke the abdomen. Often the bending of the back will start the flow of eggs; if not, then it may require several light strokes to start them ; but if the trout is not fully ripe she must be kept a day or two more, for if much force is used she is apt to die, and while some of her eggs may be ripe enough to be impregnated, they will produce embryos, which will either die in the egg or live along in a feeble man- ner and amount to nothing, few surviving the absorp- tion of the sac. THE MALE TROUT in spawning time has a bright red belly and is slim in comparison. He need not be han- dled as carefully as his mate with her burden. The milt of one male is often sufficient for half a dozen 62 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. spawners, as a few drops are enough for the eggs of one fish. IMPREGNATING THE Eccs—Clean pans must be used and cleanliness is essential in all fishcultural opera- tions. Have pans for this purpose and never put any- thing but water and eggs in them. Tin, earthen and STRIPPING A SMALL TROUT. enameled-iron will do, but the paper ones which I tried once in shad hatching did not produce strong fish: why, I don’t know; but they were discarded. Wet the pan to free it from dust and lightly drain it; wet -your hands and strip the female trout, remembering that she has an ovary on each side that reaches from vent to gills. Begin near the vent and work up gradually, and when you have finished she will look very slim. Work Trout Breeding. 63 as fast as possible, for she is becoming faint and may need a rest in the tub if you are too long about it. If you have a helper, let him strip a male or two at the same time, right over the eggs; if alone, strip a male and then add just water enough to cover the eggs and let them stand for a few minutes and add as much more water. The milt of the male contains microscopic organ- isms called spermatozoa, which lie quiescent until they inenmes SPAWNING FUNNEL, to strip fish.in, to prevent their slipping * among the eggs in pan below.” strike water, when they begin to be active, but die in three te five minutes afterward. The eggs are soft and flabby when they come from the female, because there is a loose outer coat which has a funnel-shaped orifice in it, which is called the micropyle. Through this the egg absorbs water, and if that water is heavily charged with milt a spermatozoon is likely to enter and the egg is fertilized. In twenty or thirty minutes the egg will have absorbed all it can, and if not impreg- ’ 64. Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. nated within that time no power can fertilize it. Al- ways dilute the milt slightly with water or it will not be active. Bloody milt is not good. Here is where we beat nature by bringing every egg in contact with the milt and giving it a chance to get a spermatozoon be- fore it has ceased absorbing. At first the eggs adhere to the pan or to each other, because they are flabby, just as a piece of wet leather adheres to and can be made to lift a brick. They must not be disturbed until they have drunk their fill and are free, when they are washed from superfluous milt and placed on the trays. Leave them long in the pan and don’t hurry their freeing; the colder the water the ionger they adhere. THe Russtin Metuop.—The above is the so-called “Russian Method,” which made a great stir among fishculturists in America. We used to follow nature so closely that we took the eggs in a pan nearly full of water. Inthe New York Citisen of May 27, 1871, Mr. George Shephard Page had the experiments of M. Vrasski, a Russian scientist, translated, and it proved that impregnation was more perfect if the eggs and milt were put together before water was added, and when we tried it our per cent. of impregnation was more than doubled and the “dry method” at once be- came popular; yet sixteen years had intervened be- tween the discovery of Vrasski and the translation. All American fishculturists had been wondering why a trout carried so many unfertile eggs, but had not stum- bled on the secret. Of course one man claimed to have known it for years, but as it was his habit to claim every discovery, no one paid any attention to him. and if he really did know it and did not publish it he could not claim credit; yet that fact never hindered him. In Trout Breeding. 65 the reports of the American Fishculturists’ Associa- tion, now the American Fisheries Society, it is on rec- ord that he bragged of showing Mr. Stone how to take trout eggs and filled the pan with water. I visited his ponds often and noted that he was picking out as many white eggs as any one. The main points in taking eggs are: cleanliness of all implements; wet hands, to prevent removing slime from fish, which means death to them from fungus, a point that will be taken up under the head of “Dis- eases ;” the rapidity with which the eggs and milt are brought together after extrusion, and the protection from changes of temperature. Temperature is a vital point. If the air and water are of nearly equal tem- perature, all right; but if the air is much colder than the water, set the pans in water at once. If in the pond, cover the pans, for the sun must never strike a trout egg. I shall probably say this several times, and will now repeat it: never let the sun shine on a trout egg. If you have a hatching house, take the pans there, and if the air in the house is too cold set the pans in a hatching trough. Remember this: Water, whether in brooks or lakes, does not vary suddenly in temperature. It takes many days of warm or cold air to raise or lower a pond a degree or two; the change is slow; therefore the fishes, not being accustomed to sudden changes, cannot stand them. In winter the globe of goldfish stands in a room heated to 70° Fahrenheit. “The poor things need fresh water!” And they get it from the house service at near the freezing point, and after a few shocks of this kind that hardy and much-abused fish dies, and its owner wonders what killed it when “it had fresh water every day.” A trout cannot endure anything like that 66 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. treatment, and if the adult cannot stand it, how can the little bit of life which is trying to assert itself in the egg which is only half an hour old stand it? Look to the temperatures of air and water when taking trout eggs. The taking and impregnating of eggs is the most delicate and important part of fishculture. No man can become an expert by reading this or any other book.. There are things that he must get by experience. I can tell him in words how to distinguish and strip a ripe trout, as far as words will go, but I realize that the directions are much like those books whose titles are, “The Violin Without a Master,” and “The Art of Boxing,” etc. After reading such works there is much to learn. I believe that a novice may follow my instructions and, after noting his failures from year to year, he will get on the right track; but, if he can afford it, it will be years to his credit if he employs a competent fish- culturist, and they are now to be had from the hatch- eries of many States. I have taken eggs from the same trout many years without injury to her. A trout can retain its eggs if jts stomach is empty, and they some- times sulk as a cow does when being milked, but a full belly causes her to be glad to be rid of her burden. SPAWN FROM WILD TROUT. Brook trout usually run up into swift, shallow, grav- elly streams to spawn, if thore are such streams acces- sible to them. In Buck Pond, near Meacham Lake, _Franklin County, New York, there is no inlet stream, and the trout spawn about the springs in the bottom. Trout Breeding. 67 I once helped the proprietor, Mr. A. R. Fuller, take eggs from fish which he netted there in about two feet of water. Yet I have known trout to spawn about spring-holes in a lake when there was a good inlet stream. In such cases it is difficult to net the fish un- less the water is shallow and the springs near the shore, when a seine may be carefully put out around them and hauled; but great care must be used, for they will rush for deep water at the slightest alarm. In all cases there must be a pen or pool provided for such fish as are not fully ripe. Out of ten spawners only one may be fit for stripping on the day it is caught. In parts of Canada, Vermont and the Adirondacks, the trout begin to go to the spawning grounds in Au- gust, and some will be ripe by the middle of September ; in that case the spawning season is over in November. On Long Island the spawning begins about November I, and continues into February in some years, the height of the season being in December. This is be- cause the waters do not get cool early in the season, and all fali and winter spawning fish develop their eggs on a falling temperature; cold seems to stimulate the development of their eggs as warmth does that of the spring and summer spawners. It is best to have everything in readiness a month be- fore the spawning begins in order that those fish which run up at first may not be alarmed at weirs or traps placed in the water later. The males usually run up first, and often are a fortnight ahead of the females, and these males should not be caught or disturbed dur- ing their search for mates. Mr. J. W. Titcomb, Fish Commissioner of Vermont, recently read a paper be- fore the American Fisheries Society on collecting the spawn of wild trout, and I cannot do better than to 68 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. quote the following, concerning traps, from his paper: “Location.—The location of a trap should be made at a point where it is least likely to be inundated or washed out by freshets, which would allow the escape of many fish when they are most likely to be running in greatest numbers. A point on the stream near its mouth is ad- vised, or at some place below any possible spawning bed, but not near enough to the outlet to be affected by back water from the pond. It is desirable to have a slight fall of water at the entrance to the trap. In order to avoid washouts, the selection of a point where the channel is broad is preferable. The slats of the weir occupying about four-fifths of the natural water- way will act as a barrier to raise the water above its natural level, more or less. “Construction.—The trap is a V-shaped inclosure de- scribed by the mathematical term, ‘re-entering poly- gon,’ made of slats varying in dimensions with the size of the stream and the force of the current. I used slats 1 inch square, planed on two sides, driven into the bed of the brook vertically, about 4 inch apart, and nailed to horizontal timbers or hewn logs. This frame- work of horizontal timbers consists of one course laid at water level and a parallel course at the extreme height of the weir. The general idea of such a trap is the same as the pound net, there being an opening of 4 or § inches in the angle of the V. A gate can be ar- ranged in the entrance with a lever reaching to some point obscured from the view of the entrapped fish, which can be lowered whenever the trap is approached for inspection. This method of trapping trout is not new, but requires more precautions than for the cap- ture of other fish less active and gamy, and a few words Trout Breeding. 69 of caution to the inexperienced may be desirable. Build your trap to resist the greatest freshet the stream is liable to develop. The run of trout at such times will be greatest. Be careful to get a foundation that will not be undermined by the constant washing of the cur- rent between the slats. It is usually best to entirely surround the sides of a trap with slats rather than to depend upon the natural embankments. It is not necessary to use narrow slats for the sides of the trap, as no water passes through them, and the only object is to secure an inclosure from which fish can be easily dipped out. For a stream 6 feet wide I should build an inclosure about 6 feet square, the V extending into thé inclosure about 3 feet. “In many localities it will be found possible to dig side ditches above the trap and inclosures, at right angles with the stream, in order to convey surplus water away from the trap, and lessen the danger of washout or inundation. The bottom of such ditches should be considerably above low water mark to carry off surplus high water. “A convenient place for the pens is just above the trap, so that the trout can be dipped from the latter into the former. They are constructed of the same material of which the trap is made, the upper side of the trap inclosure being used as the lower side or end of a series of pens. These should be made in shape and size to suit the location and number of fish ex- pected to be captured, and the same precautions should be taken with them as with the trap to guard against washouts. In many instances the bed of the brook is hard gravel and stones of large size, preventing the driving of the slats into it. In such cases it is desirable to make an apron at the base of the slat-work, upon 40 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. which the water will fall as it passes through them, and prevent washing out of holes underneath the slats. This apron can be made of boards as an artificial bot- tom to the trap or pens, but a cheaper and quite as ser- viceable method is to place evergreen boughs or green underbrush at the base of the slat-work, covering the same with crushed stone or small stones from the bed of the brook, and then with coarse gravel. This fea- ture of construction is very important. If there is a hole in the trap or pens large enough for trout to escape, they will surely do so. In fact, they will dig out under the slat-work if not properly guarded against. It is well to have planks extending over the trap and pens, on whick one can conveniently stand to dip out the fish. Adjacent to the trap and pens, a rough board shanty can be constructed, or a tent can be temporarily used. There will be many stormy and cold days, how- ever, and I advise having a shanty with facilities for heating it, and with a bunk where the attendant can sleep. Add to this equipment a reflecting lantern. Field stations of this description are usually some dis- tance from habitation, and the ordinary comforts of camp life should be available to insure good work of the spawn taker.” NUMBER OF EGGS IN TROUT. Mr. Titcomb gives a very interesting table of the yield of eggs from trout of different sizes, which is worth preserving. He says: “Twenty-nine female trout, stripped of spawn at this field station November 26, 1896, were measured and weighed and the number of eggs yielded by each re- corded. The girth, as given in the following table,. Trout Breeding. a1 was taken before the trout were stripped and with a scale which might not be regarded as entirely accurate, but approximately so. Some of these trout had appar- ently dropped part of their eggs before being captured: Length Girth Weight No. of in inches. in inches. lbs. ozs. Eggs. 13 7 1 0 1,394 18 ™% 2 6 2,665 10 ve 6% 492 11% 614 8 615 17 11 2 1 2,563 17% 11 1 14% 2,358 ~8% 4 3 130 124% mh 114% 1,312 12% 7 10 20 11144 6% 8 410 11% 6 8 615 10% 5% 61%, 308 12 q 916 820 164, 9 1 10% 923 11 8 615 13 6% 11%, 1,025 17 10 2 1 2,665 13 61% 111%, 923 1% 614 11% 820 12 6 10 718 16 916 L 68 1,845 10 534, 6% 656 16 10 1 14% 1,948 1634 10% 1 12 2,563 144% 8 1 2% 1,845 18% Th 14 1,074 16 8%. 1 8 1,845 17 10%, 2 2,665 15 934 1 8 1,948 Total for 29 trout...... 31 6% 38,580” My estimate given below is not as large as this, but Mr. Titcomb gives figures from a record, while mine, written before I saw his, is merely an estimate such as would be given offhand in reply to a question. The flow of water in a hatching trough should be about too gallons per hour for each 10,000 eggs. If the work is distant from a hatchery there should be troughs or trays for developing the eggs as they are taken. These will be treated in another chapter. In gathering eggs in streams on Long Island my men 972 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. had less than a mile to go from the hatchery and brought the eggs back with them each morning. The following is my estimate of the yield of eggs of trout of different sizes: Age. Weight. Eggs. 1% years. 3 to 5 oz. 50 to 160 2% years. 14 oz. to 1% lbs. 700 to 1,000 3% years. 2 to 3 lbs. 1,200 to 2,000 Not known 314 to 5 lbs. 2,000 to 4,000 These were pond-fed trout and the ages were re- corded from March 1 of each year. Thus: A trout of March 1, 1890, would be 1 year and 8 months old in November, 1891; by some the fish would be classed as two-year-olds and by others yearlings. With me they were “yearlings” until actually two years old. I have had much larger trout at the ages given above, but have given a fair average weight. PACKING EGGS FOR SHIPMENT. No eggs should be picked for shipment until the eyes are plainly visible, and, in fact, the older the bet- ter, if possible. The embryo before the eye stage is reached is very delicate and easily killed by a jar of any kind; even a shaking of the hatching trough may injure, if not kill it. But after the eyes can be seen the embryo begins to get strong and will bear rougher. treatment. For transporting freshly taken eggs from the streams to the hatchery my men used tin water pails and brought them in water, if they came down the mill- ponds in a boat, but if they came from a stream down ‘ Trout Breeding. 73 the harbor and walked home they had a box 1 foot each way with a swinging door. In this there were light frames 4 inch deep with bottoms of canton flannel, woolly side up; on these the eggs were floated, under water, and evenly: distributed in a single layer until ‘each box was filled. An ordinary trunk or drawer handle on the top served to carry it by. On arriving at the hatchery the trays are put in the troughs, and by the movement of water by a feather the eggs are gathered to the lower side of the tray and then turned out. It does not hurt them to fall when in water, but to fall in air and strike the surface of water is fatal. To pack for a week’s journey by rail the eggs should be well advanced and the embryo quite well colored—say, forty-five days old. If only a thousand zre to be sent, a box of tin or wood 8x4x3 inches deep will do, but not a cigar-box, because of the odor. Make holes in the bottom for drainage, lay an inch of living swamp-moss—sphagnum—on the bottom, then cover with mosquito netting, one layer of eggs covered with netting, a thin layer of moss, and so on, covering with moss. Press the cover down hard; you can’t hurt them by pressure of moss; and they should be put up so firmly that if dropped endwise on the floor not an egg would stir. Then get a larger box and pack the smaller one in it with at least three inches of sawdust on top, sides and bottom, and mark: “Fish eggs; keep cool, but don’t let ’em freeze.” The principle is this: The little fish within the egg needs oxygen as well as an adult. It would die in still water after the oxygen was absorbed, just as its parents would. The living moss gives off oxygen and holds the necessary moisture, and that’s all there is of it. The mosquito netting is a convenience to the one who un- 74 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. packs them because he does not have to pick the eggs out of the moss. To pack eggs for foreign shipment is a different affair, although many fishculturists do not think so, and pack for a two-weeks’ trip as described above and let them go. The late Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Fish Commis- sioner of the United States from 1871 until his death in 1887, appointed me in charge of foreign exchanges of eggs and fish in 1877. In his day there were constant exchanges with Germany, and shipments of eggs of trout, quinnat salmon and our lake whitefish to Eng- land, France and Holland. I opened all foreign boxes, picked out the dead eggs, gave the living a “drink” and a wash, repacked what were good and sent them to the different Government or State hatcheries. I repacked all eggs that were to go abroad, and in 1877 and 1878 went with the shipments to Germany. These things are mentioned to show my right to an opinion on the subject. In the years named I repacked the eggs of quinnat salmon on flannel trays, above which was a box for ice, which by its drip kept the eggs cool and moist, and the trays were so arranged as to be inspected and the dead removed, for in dead eggs lies great danger to the liv- ing. On the first trip only 25,000 were so packed, while the remainder went in the original packages, without opening, as per order from Prof. Baird by request of the original packer. My box turned out well; the others were a total loss, and after that I was given carte blanche to repack as I saw fit. The next year I took 100,000 over safely and received the thanks of the Deutsche Fischerei Verein, a silver medal from the Societe d’Acclimation, Paris, and $200 from the Trout Breeding. 75 King of Holland, sent through Mr. C. J. Bottemanne, Inspector of Fisheries, Bergen op Zoom. In after years I packed as follows: A layer of eggs on trays, a cover of Mosquito netting and a thick layer of moss; then a tray with perforated zinc bottom ‘THe First REFRIGERATING Box For SHIPPING SALMON Eccs TO EvROPE. a filled with ice, cover screwed on and the box packed in another with sawdust. This packing did not need an attendant, and at the World’s Fischerei Austellung, Berlin, 1880, it received a bronze medal. : 76 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. Mr. W. Oldham Chambers, secretary of the Na- tional Fishculture Association of England, in his his- tory of fishculture, “JLand and Water,” March 27, 1886, says: “We may well take a lesson from the American system of packing, which is very simple, but most effi- cacious in attaining the desired end, which is to dimin- ish as much as possible the rate of mortality through injury. In the first place, the ova are placed into trays, consisting of calico (canton flannel) stretched upon wooden frames, which are deposited one above the other in the centre of a large box, each tray being inter- laid with moss. Around the pyramid of trays, which are fixed firmly into position, a partition is reserved, serving as a receptacle for ice and sawdust—two most important factors in transmitting ova. On arrival at their destination the eggs can be readily unpacked by removing the trays from the box, clearing away the moss between each, and turning the ova en masse by means of water into the hatching troughs. The orig- inator of this capital method is, I believe, Mr. Fred Mather, of New York. I am able to testify to the fact that not more than thirty eggs out of every thousand sent me at various periods have perished during the journey from New York to London, which is an evi- dence of the skill displayed in packing them.” Very often 1 received foreign eggs packed in the old style, and after picking qut the dead ones reported the remainder in good order, being required to make an immediate report. But I learned to deduct at least half because, with my first report in hand, I was ex- pected to turn out a proportionate lot of fry. Many “good” eggs either died a week later or pro- duced deformities which could never live. It is a fact that an injury to an embryo is-not always fatal (a no- Trout Breeding. 97 table instance of this may be found in the first chapter of Tristram Shandy), and fish eggs may be injured in transit by heat, concussion, or a lack of moisture so that the embryo will come into the world only to die. Concussion is more immediately fatal than a high temperature; it kills within a few days. Lack of mois- ture is shown at once by indented eggs, and upon the degree of indentation rests the damage. I have ex- perimented with such eggs and have found that those only slightly indented have produced good fish, while others somewhat drier did uct. A high temperature on eggs of Salmonide, and it is of these that I speak, makes weak embryos. if they live to break the shell. They hatch head first, and all fishculturists know that such fish have a small chance for life, or they have not strength enough to straighten from the coil in which they have been and are “whirligigs,” spinning round in one direction at every effort to move. These die of starvation because they cannot swim. A lot of saibling eggs-received from Germany looked first-rate, but one-fifth of the embryos had not strength enough to straighten after hatching. Another result of high temperature en route is a softening of the egg, either the outer covering or some part beneath, and these embroys hatch but do not live to take food. Of some eggs of our lake whitefish sent to me by Mr. Clark for transmission to Germany, and repacked in my boxes, the late Herr von Behr wrote as follows: “Berlin, Feb. 1, 1881. “Mr. MatHer: It is wonderful how good the whitefish eggs arrived. I divided them and sent them to many parts of Germany and Austria, with no loss to speak of, This manner of packing may be immor- 78 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. tal! And if the promised trout eggs come in equally good shape I will be happy.” CHAPTER IV. CARE OF TROUT EGGS. These things will kill your eggs in the troughs or in the nests, or redds, in the stream: The sun is deadly ; two minutes of direct sunshine through a crack will kill every egg it strikes. Sediment will close the pores in the egg and smother the embryo. A sudden jar on the trough, a heavy weight falling on the floor or con- cussion of any kind will either kill or deform the em- bryos, according to their stage of development. Rats and mice will eat the eggs, and one dead egg will kill all that it touches if left until fungus forms on it—say Trout Breeding. 79 in three or four days. In the streams all these dangers are mutiplied ten-fold, and to them are added: ducks, geese, swans, eels, suckers, chubs, bullheads and year- ling trout, for the eggs of trout and salmon seem to have an attractive odor for fishes, and in England poachers use salmon eggs, probably not impregnated, but direct from the fish, as a lure for trout that is said to be irresistible, and salmon roe is even salted down for that purpose. Hatching the eggs of brook trout is a simple matter if proper arrangements are made at first. The condi- tions required are a steady flow of water at a low tem- perature, the absence of sediment, and the exclusion of light, enemies, and all decaying animal or vegetable matter from the water, especially such as might arise from dead eggs—conditions which can usually be best obtained where a spring rises, but are often available below it if sufficient fall can be obtained. .Let us suppose that the owner wishes to make an experiment to see what he can do in hatching trout, with which he has had no previous experierice, and does not care to go to the expense of building a hatching house until he has proved his ability to manage one. He wishes to try 10,000 eggs with as little expense as possible beyond their cost. A tight trough of clean, well-seasoned pine, ten feet long, fourteen inches wide, and eight inches deep, with one end open, will do. Make according to directions for troughs. Place strips across it at eighteen inches apart, making nests an inch deep; cover this with fine, well-washed gravel, about the size of buckwheat, or larger, to the depth of half an inch, put on a cover with hinges and lock, place a screen in the lowet end to keep out mice and insects, and the trough is therl ready. The 80 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water, trough may be placed by making a dam with a board, a foot or more in height, and, tapping it with a half- inch pipe, let it run into the upper end of the trough, which should be slightly raised, so that there will be a small ripple over the strips, but not current enough to carry away the eggs when placed upon the gravel. If this trough is in a spring house, or a hatching house is built, where a settling reservoir can be used, it will be found a great help in keeping the eggs free from sediment which will collect and, partly covering the egg, interfere with its vitality by depriving it of its power of absorbing oxygen from the water in a man- ner analogous to breathing. The trough being in readi- ness and the eggs received, fill the trough by a dam at lower end and place the boxes in the trough before opening until they have acquired its temperature, then take a pan of water, remove the eggs and rinse them free from any dirt in the moss, pick out the few dead ones, which you will at once recognize by their milky whiteness, dip the edge of the pan under water and let the.eggs drop on the gravel to be afterward dis- tributed with the wing feather of a fowl. Ever re- member these vital rules: never let the sun shine upon the eggs, never pour them through the air to strike the surface of the water (although they may fall any dis- tance under water) and never expose them to sudden changes of temperature. Having placed the eggs on the gravel, all that is now required is a daily inspection to see that the water is running steadily, and to remove such eggs as may die from time to time, to prevent them from decay and growing a woolly fungus which is very deadly. They should also be feathered over as often as any sign of a deposit of sediment is observed, beginning at the head Trout Breeding. 81 of the trough and working it down. This requires to be attended to much oftener when some distance below the spring, as all disturbance above tends to foul the water and the flow in the trough is not strong enough to carry it through. A box with the bottom knocked out, and a fine sieve substituted, is good to fasten above the pipe to keep leaves and coarse particles out. In the hatching house the use of gravel is nearly obsolete, although Mr. Frank N. Clark, a veteran fish- culturist of acknowledged ability, has recently returned to its partial use, as has been told in these pages. Frames, with wire bottoms, are used, as described under that head. The frames are often placed one above the other to the number of five or six, thereby in- creasing the hatching capacity of the trough as many times, and rendering the cleaning easily and thoroughly done by raising the frames, sprinkling them with a common watering pot, and washing out the trough with a small broom; with this system no strips are used, but for simple experiment the gravel will do, it being the old system under which we worked for years before the introduction of the frames. But while five or six lay- ers of eggs may be developed, these should not be al- lowed to hatch in the trough or the young would be smothered. A trout egg requires 60 to 100 or more days to hatch, according to temperature, and the colder it is, down to freezing, the longer it takes. Warm water, 60° Fahr. and upward, hatches them quickly, but leaves the em- bryos weak and liable to die. After hatching, the water in the trough may be deepened ane the current slightly increased ; the strongest of the fry will work up stream and the weaker will try to hide or be carried against the screen, where they will finally be suffocated by the 82 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. pressure of the water closing their gills against the wire. These had better be turned loose before dying. TOOLS OF THE CRAFT. The implements in use in the troughs are few and simple. Wisp-brooms to clean troughs and trays from slime. Strong feathers in wooden handles to move eggs that may be washed in heaps—the wing feathers of geese are best, because the quills are stiffer. Nuippers for removing dead eggs or other substances are best made of red cedar; a piece 7 inches long by 1} inches wide and $ inch thick will do. Bore a $-inch hole an inch and a half from one end and rip from the other end into the hole with a saw and then trim down until you have a pair of nippers that are springy and will open themselves. Either flatten and hollow the ends to hold an egg, or better still, whip on loops of fine brass wire. Then make square frames of heavier brass wire and put in a wooden handle, the frames being 3 inches square. Cover them with “millinet,” such as milliners use, sew it on perfectly flat and it is handy for picking up lots of eggs that have got off the trays or for other purposes. Strong glass tubes, about three-quarters of an inch outside diameter, and ten inches long, are very handy for picking up eggs or embryos for examination. Stop one end with the finger and put the other end near the object to be lifted. Remove the finger quickly and let the water rush in with the eggs, dirt or whatever you may wish. Close the top again and also the bottom and then you can examine the object at leisure. These things, with a microscope and thermometer, are all that | need to hatch several millions of trout. Go Trout Breeding. 83 over the eggs cach day, remove all dirt, dead eggs or other matter; keep everything clean, see that the flow of water is regular and wait for the hatching to begin. HATCHING IN BULK. Some years ago I devised a series of trays to hatch in layers, which improved on the Clark-Williamson trough, which had fixed partitions in it where the water went under one and over the next. (See cut.) Fig. 1 is copied from plate XVI, Report U.S. F. C., 1872-73, and shows a “nest of trays in Williamson’s Double Riffle Hatching Box.” It will be noticed that the dams are permanent and in pairs, the upper one being the lowest to permit the water to flow over it and up 84 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. under the next one, which extends above the water line, thus forcing the water downward to flow up through the nest of trays and then down again. Fig. 2 is my system, so arranged as to secure the same result and yet have no dams in the troughs, which may be used to hatch single layers when the house is not crowded. The trays should be square and of exact size, only one-quarter inch smaller than the inside of the trough. I have urged that all troughs be of exact size inside, in order to avoid ill-fitting trays. Each tray should fit any trough. Rabbet the bottoms of the trays so that the wire-cloth is sunk in, for the trays must set tightly on each other. Use No. 14 wire-cloth, which is small and does not injure the embryos by let- ting sacs and tails through. The top tray, A, has no eggs on it, but has a stop- water, D, fast to the side, which must be put up stream. The lower tray, 4, has a half-inch square strip on three sides, which forces the water up through the eggs. The water line is at W. To each gang of trays, four or more, there must be the two special top and bottom ones. The sets of trays are kept from floating up, or from escape of water on the bottom, by braces across the trough or by weights. In cleaning the eggs the trays are floated up and one tray after another is gone over. They should be picked over twice a week until hatching begins, and then only once to remove shells and pick out dead. The fry can be kept in these frames until ready to take food, when they may be put in float- ing boxes in the ponds to be fed or may be turned out. The capacity of a set of four trays, as described, is 2,500 salmon or 7,000 trout, thus increasing the hatch- ing capacity of a trough fourfold and holding the fry safely until the smothering period has passed. The Trout Breeding. 85 embryo fish lie quietly on these frames because there is but little light, a thing they avoid, but if the ‘“rabbet” for the wire-cloth is deeper than one-sixteenth of an inch, letting the wire in deeper, there will always be some fry on top of the frame below to bother by escap- ing when cleaning. A trough full of these trays does not show up much “business” to a visitor, but it is of use when the hatchery is crowded. UNIMPREGNATED Eccs never change from the time they are taken until they turn white, which they may do at any time, often not until hatching begins. With a microscope I can see the change in a trout egg at three days old and with the eye at ten to twenty days, accord- SMALLER TOOLS OF THE CRAFT. ing to temperature. At first all the eggs have a ring at the top; no matter if it is rolled over the ring will come up. The first sign of impregnation under the micro- scope is a division of the yolk into halves and then quarters; then comes the “mulberry mass,” and after- ward the line of the backbone and the eyes. But the egg with no fish in it, if it has not turned white, holds 86 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. its ring, and when the eyes appear the “ringers,” as we call them, can be picked out and fed to the yearlings; and they are very fond of them. If eggs are packed for shipment all ringers should be picked out, as they “die” at the slightest disturbance, and only fertile eggs should be sent. CHAPTER V. CARE OF FRY. The Century Dictionary defines “fry” as “the very young of a fish.” In that sense I use it. Technically the young fish is an embryo while in the egg and after bursting the shell until the umbilicus is absorbed. But I have declined to use the French word “alevin’’ for the hatched embryo, just as I decline to use the Latin “ova” for eggs. English fishculturists advertise “eyed ova.” There’s a mouthful! What’s the matter with a good English word like eggs? I would as soon think of asking a waiter to bring me ‘‘two fried ova’ as of calling fish eggs by a Latin name to show my learning. Most of American fishculturists speak of “eggs of fish” and call embryo trout “fry” until the sac is absorbed, when they are “babies” until they are entitled to be termed “yearlings.” A troutlet which bursts the shell head first or lets any part-of its umbilical sac out in advance is a poor, weak critter whose shell has worn thin and it had no power to burst it. Few such live. A strong, healthy embryo trout rips the shell open with its tail and wiggles about Trout Breeding. 87 with head and sac in the shell, driving it here and there as if it meant business until the shell drops away. In trout culture the hatching is a simple matter, and one that is easily learned, so that a child can attend to it; the real difficulty for a novice being in keeping the young fish the first year and overcoming, first, the dis- position of half of them to die without apparent cause or provocation during the arst three months, and, sec- ondly, the propensity to escape through an unseen crack or a defective screen; but the second season all that are left seem to thrive well and to be contented with their confinement, provided a gate is not left open for them to get into the stream, and even then they are liable to return at the spawning time. A newly hatched trout would never be classed as a young trout by one who sees it for the first time. They look like small threads of albumen, which have great eyes, and attached to the belly is the great yolk-sac, about as large as the original egg. They cannot swim, but move about on the bottom in an apparently aimless manner, seeking to avoid light. In the brooks they would scatter and bury themselves in the gravel, but in the troughs they huddle and crowd in corners to avoid the light, for they take no food until their haversack, with thirty to forty days’ rations, is exhausted and their instinct is to hide. This is a critical time. They may pile on top of their fellows and smother the bottom ones. This must be prevented. Keep the upper parts of the trough darkened with covers or window shades and let the outlet screens be in the light. This will prevent them from squeezing in any crack about the screen and dying there, or of their letting tails or parts of sacs through the wire-cloth and perishing. The crowding is worse while they are young and deli- 88 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. cate, say for the first fortnight, and I have put stones and bricks in the troughs to induce them to scatter. But these are not good; some will wedge their heads under them and die. If kept dark by covers, as aforesaid, for a couple of weeks they will come out right, for the crowding is merely to escape light, and when the covers are lifted the little fellows which were quiescent begin to scatter to find a dark place. Under this management the strong fellows will be well up in the trough and the weaklings and deformities will be sifted out by the incessant working of their tails to keep their places and will be found about the foot of the trough; crooked To Prevent Fry From Crowp1nc.—This is a small inner frame to place in the trough. BB, outer and inner troughs; F, an inner projection of wood or tin; W, wire cloth through which water from the outside flows. By W. P. Seal in Forest and Stream, Feb, 19, 1891. The fry are supposed to gather below the wire cloth W. tails, double-headers and all others not fitted to survive will be found near the outlet. The newly hatched trout is much more delicate than the egg and must be treated accordingly. Move them, when necessary, by pouring water on them or by mak- ing currents with a feather, but don’t touch them. Tf you wish to disturb them to remove the dead or to send them toward the head of the trough take a piece of half- inch pine board, a little less than the width of the trough and one inch less than its depth; tack a strip on its upper edge to rest on the top of the trough and slide this down the trough with some force. The water will rush Trout Breeding. 89 up stream and carry the fry with it, and a few such movements will send them swirling toward the head of the trough. Delicate as they are to the rough touch of a feather, the swirl of water does not hurt them; it merely carries them with it and they come in contact with noth- ing but water. A trout or salmon, newly hatched, is a beautiful thing under the microscope. The circulation of blood is shown more clearly than in the frog’s foot, which is the standard thing to use in school work; but the frog is available at all times. Under the microscope the caudal heart can be seen up to the fifth day, when it is ab- sorbed. The streams of blood in the sac seem to flow like creeks, now dammed by a lot of corpuscles and then breaking away and flowing on, while the plexus in the tail shows the capillaries returning the arterial blood to the veins and back to the gills for oxygenation. The loss in eggs is largely due to the lack of impreg- nation, although some few embryos die after the eye- spots show. The loss after hatching and before feed- ing is largely from malformations and weaklings if there has been no smothering, a thing which the expeit fishculturist does not allow to happen, because his trained eye detects the first sign of crowding and stops it. But as all this is not written for the expert, but for the beginner, all these dangers are mentioned. If the beginner buys 20,000 eggs from a reliable dealer he is sure that each egg has a fish in it when the lot is put up. If he expects that he will hatch and rear 20,000 trout he will be mistaken. Why should he expect it? He can't raise goo chickens out of a thousand that are hatched, not to mention those which died in the egg. He can’t average nine out of ten colts, calves or children if he is doing business on a large scale, and why should he ex- 90 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. pect fish to be an exception? Given 20,000 good trout eggs, with the eyes to be seen in each egg, they are about fifty days old and are due to hatch in ten or twenty days more. He will pick out 500 white eggs before they begin to hatch and 500 more in dead and deformed embryos that never could live. That is only 5 per cent. loss before feeding, and is very low. It is more likely to be twice that number, yet there is no fault to be found with the seller nor with the receiver. It is the natural mortality which 1s common to all young animals. It is part of nature’s scheme in animal in- crease, and no man can improve it. We not only impregnate more eggs than is possible in Emsryo Satmon, showing yoke sac with oil globules and veins, also the embryonic fin with indications of perma- nent fins, a state of nature, but we protect both eggs and embryos until the little fellows are ready to take food, a period of some seventy days in the egg and of at least thirty more before the sac is absorbed. This nearly covers the win- ter months and brings our protégés up to the time when insect life, either in perfect form or larve, is stirring in the spring and affording food for the baby trout which, having absorbed its yolk-sac, is swimming clear of the bottom, heading up-stream and examining every tiny bit that floats down. It takes a morsel in its mouth, Trout Breeding. gt throws it out and settles down on the bottom to rest, its curiosity having been satisfied. Take up one now in a glass tube and note that the embryonic fin which ran from the insertion of the dorsal fin around the tail to the anal fin, like the fin of an eel, has been absorbed and the permanent fins are developed. The sac which seemed to be absorbed appears like a bit of amber in the cleft abdomen, as though the fish were about to split open. The sac is almost absorbed and the walls of the abdomen will join together over it and the embryo will be a trout in a few days. Yet it will take food by the mouth before the sac is fully absorbed, and a proof of this is not in its seizing floating particles, but in its passing of ordure. Nothing passes the embryo trout while subsisting on its sac; the yolk is pure nutri- ment, with no waste, but when it begins to feed with its mouth there is a waste which is common to all animals after leaving the embryo stage, and the troughs must be feathered down every day. The fish with curled tails cannot be helped. They cannot swim and must spin around in one direction, and, being unable to seek food, must die. The “double headers” occur in many shapes, from two and even three heads to fish merely joined at the tail, and even “twins,” which were two apparently perfect and dis- tinct fish, but with only one umbilical sac between them. I have tried to rear thousands of these monstrosities and have had them take food with both heads for several days and then find them dead some morning. The salmon and trout seem to be more given to producing monstrosities than any other fishes on my visiting list. A little salt is good to sprinkle at the head of the trough occasionally if there is a sign of fungus from fin or tail nibbling, — : . 92 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. CHAPTER VI. FEEDING FRY. The time of absorbing the sac we roughly state at about thirty days, but it varies according to tempera- ture. Those hatching about February rst, in cold water, are longer in absorbing it than those coming out a month later, especially if warm rains come on. From twenty-five to forty days would be more accurate. When nearly ready to take food they head up-stream, and the strongest will be at the inflow. They will crowd in a corner if there is an eddy there, and some may try to jump up the incoming stream and land on the floor. To remedy this make a little box, about 6x9 inches and 5 deep, with a bottom of fine wire-cloth or perforated tin, and hang it so that the water pours into it, the bottom being a couple of inches below the sur- face. Such a box is good to put in when hatching begins, as it catches all insects and crustaceans which might injure the fry. Now it will distribute the inflow through small holes and prevent jumping out. When they begin to rise and examine small floating objects care must be taken that the trough is not over- crowded, for if they are crowded they will soon nibble fins and tails, even though food is plenty. They seem to do this from irritability at being crowded and nip at a tail as if to say: “Get out of my way.” When a tail or pectoral fin has been nibbled it turns white, is mis- taken for food and is picked at until fungus sets in and the troutlet dies. Ina trough 10 feet by 14 inches, with Trout Breeding. 93 water 6 inches deep, 7,000 trout fry are quite enough to feed- If the trough is 14 feet long 10,000 may be re- tained. The remainder, if any, should be placed in other troughs or in floating boxes in the ponds. For description of these boxes see the chapter on shad. To feed the fish which we should have from 10,000 eggs take a piece of beef liver as large as a hickory nut and scrape it with a sharp knife until only fibre is left; take the scrapings and pass all of it that will go through a screen of about twenty wires to the inch by rubbing and pressing it with a flat piece of shingle and scraping it off the under side. Place this on a board and add a few drops of water to make a thin paste, and then drop in a little at a time, taking care not to feed more than they will eat, in order not to foul the trough. It may be flicked from a knife blade down the trough. My fa- vorite is a “knife” made of hard wood, something like a paper cutter. Watch them and see if they take it, Feed carefully all down the trough. The motion of their tails will now send most of the waste to the foot of the trough, yet it should be feathered as before. In a few days their appetites will increase greatly, and it is better to feed little and often than to try to give a big feed twice a day. I would not recommend any person to undertake to raise young trout by artificial feeding in troughs or boxes for the first three months unless they can feed them every hour. The appetite of the juvenile trout is as frequently intermittent as that of other young animals, and requires one to stand over thern almost constantly. When I began trout culture (1868) the only book on the subject was “American Fishculture,” by Norris, published in that year and now out of print, It con- tained all that was then known, which was but little, 94 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. Norris speaks of different kinds of food for fry, such as ‘Liver or lean meat, boiled hard and grated; the yolks of eggs, boiled hard and reduced almost to a pow- der; raw liver, chopped fine with a long sharp knife; fresh or coagulated blood; fresh shad or herring roe, raw or boiled; thick milk or honnyclabber and curds.” I had an experience in trying most of these things. Mr. Stephen H. Ainsworth, the first man to breed trout in the State of New York, cautioned me not to over- feed the fry. I had taken some 50,000 eggs from wild trout in my first year’s work and had bought 20,000 more, and my few troughs were full. My loss in un- impregnated eggs was great, for I had no instructor. I had about 35,000 fry. J must try different foods and observe their effect, being careful not to feed too much. The boiled egg was a failure. It dissolved and spread over the gravel and grew fungus; the fry were all head and no body, looking snaky. The curd acted the same way; clotted blood was worse. All these troughs must be cleaned if the fish were to be saved, and a vile mess that gravel was. The grated boiled heef was not so foul, but the fish were evidently starving. Although a novice, I could see that. Those fed on fresh liver were doing well comparatively, but were slim and “all head.” I changed to liver in all the troughs and some fish began to pick up, but thousands died. I caught a few “wild” ones that had either escaped from my troughs or been naturally spawned, and their deep bodies, broad backs and relatively small heads showed that my fish were not well fed and were just kept alive. “Why,” I asked myself, “should a young trout be resiricted in its food? Surely it gets all it wants when wild.” Then I fed them all they would eat every half hour, and could see them pick up, but Trout Breeding. 95 they never made thrifty fish. I saved some 11,000 to live through May, but I knew more about feeding trout than when I began. Along the Massachusetts coast the trout breeders feed the eggs of haddock to the fry and get good results. Shad eggs, named by Norris, come too late to be of use. I’ve mixed cream with liver. to keep it floating longer, but don’t care for it. Bellies of soft clams, Mya are- naria, the “maninose,” have been used by me with good results, but beef liver is the best food for trout and salmon fry in the troughs that I know of. Make it fine at first, coarser as they grow,-and crowd it to them. During late years I have used the sausage chopper of the Enterprise Manufacturing Company, of Phila- delphia, with good results in labor saving; but two new plates were made with holes one-eighth and one-six- teenth of an inch, as the smallest holes in the plates that come with the chopper are one-quarter of an inch. The plate with smallest holes was used until the babies could take larger particles. Yet after passing this chopper the food must be sifted, as described, because no fibre must be fed, as it passes undigested and is seen as a long white string hanging from the fish, and is trouble- some to pass. It may cause inflammation and death. The Enterprise chopper is a great improvement on the one in use years ago and figured by Mr. Stone as “Star- ret’s American chopping machine,” which had a verti- cal knife worked by a “walking-beam” in a revolving cylinder, because the meat must pass through holes of acertain size. It is the best chopper on the market. Milk and cream have been used as food for the fry, but they are not complete and wholesome, and under my feeding produced great mortality. Shreds of beef, brains and the spleen, or “milt,” as butchers call it, are g6 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. all good foods if cut or scraped and passed through the sieve, which should be changed to a larger mesh as the fish grow; the soft part of clams and eggs of other fish make excellent food for the very young trout, but the eggs of hens will make filthy troughs on account of so much of the yolk becoming dissolved and settling to the bottom, and there decaying. On Long Island I found the bellies of soft clams quite good, but returned to beef liver. As the suckers spawn in early spring, their eggs should be good food for baby trout, as I know that the flesh of suckers is for adults. The food of the very young wild trout consists of the newly hatched larvze of water-breeding insects and the young of the smaller fresh water crustacea, food that we have no way of supplying in quantity, and my own experiments, with half a dozen barrels of rainwater, to breed ‘‘wigglers” (the larve of mosquitoes) were suc- cessful as far as producing good food for the fry went; but as it took them about five or six days to grow, only one barrel could be strained each day, and the produc- tion was only equal to the demands of a few hundred fry, so that to carry it out on a scale sufficient to feed 50,000 would have made an imposing array of barrels and involved great labor and expense. The beauty of this kind of food is that it keeps until used, as well as being most suitable and wholesome. Mr. Charles Hoxsie devised an automatic feeder for trout fry, intended to dispense with hand labor. An underflow wheel of 10 or 12 inches diameter was put in the distributing trough and a crank of 1 inch moved a % strip which was suspended by cords over the heads of the troughs and gave it a 2-inch reciprocal move- ment parallel to the distributing trough—a wire would Trout Breeding. 97 do as well and would not buckle as my rod did if there was any obstruction. A tumbler rested on a strip at the head of each trough, and in the bottom of it was bored a +-inch hole; in this hole worked in and out a bit of wood, about half the diameter of the hole, attached to the rod by an arm. The tumblers were filled with food wet to the proper consistency ; the wheel revolved ; the long rod worked back and forth, forcing the wooden pins in and out of the tumblers and dropping the food automatically. I put one in the hatchery at Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., but found that it required constant at- tention to see that the tumblers were not clogged and that their contents were fluid enough but not too fluid. In theory the thing was perfect. In practice the water settled to the bottom and went out first, and when it was gone the liver would not flow; it remained in a solid mass and formed an arch above the wooden pin, which tried to do its duty but could not. Such experiments are of value, even if the results are failures, for they show us what to avoid. Mr. Hox- sie looked after his own trout and had comparatively few. I had more, and, working for the State, it was desirable to produce the best results without too great regard for expense, and so I went back to hand-feeding with brains behind it. I had a man, Foster Van Aus- dall, who was the most persistent trout-feeder I ever knew, and—TI am glad to say so out loud—he loved to see trout feed, either old or young, and he was on his feet all day feeding. When he came to the lower end of the last trough he would begin at the head of the first again, and so he went the rounds day by day while the other men were on the road with trout for stocking public waters. He loved his work, and the trout showed it. 98 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. HOW OTHERS FEED FRY. The late Sir James Maitland, Bart., had a large breed- ing establishment at Howietoun, near Sterling, Scot- land, and made it a commercial success. In a pamph- let “On Stocking Rivers, Streams, Lakes and Reser- voirs with Salmonidz,” published by his secretary, Mr. J. R. Guy, Sterling, N. B., 1892, Mr. Maitland tells how to feed fry. While I do not agree with his views, they are quoted because he had an extensive experi- ence, and therefore would consider that his ideas are as good as mine, if not better. He says: “The best and most economical food for trout frv costs about Is. 4d. per pound (nearly 32 cents)—that is to say, one pound of this paste goes further, and pro- duces much better results, than sixteen pounds of liver, because it is more nourishing and there is no waste. The food is prepared by weighing several pounds of fillet of beef—not beefsteak, which is too stringy, nor a piece off the sirloin, which is generally too fat. Fillet of horse is equally suitable with fillet of beef, and sir- loin of horse, being generally very lean, is nearly as good. . . . Mutton is not suitable. All the fat being carefully scraped off, and the meat weighed, it is pounded in a large marble mortar and passed through a coarse sieve. The yolks of hard-boiled eggs are then added, nine eggs being allowed to each pound of meat. The eggs should be several days old, as, if new-laid, it is impossible to boil the yolk until it is mealy. : When the yolks of eggs and meat have been thoroughly mixed in the mortar they are passed through a fine wire sieve and kneaded into a stiff paste. This is rolled into the shape of a thick sausage and cut and rolled into Trout Breeding. 99 large pills, each sufficient to give one meal to five boxes. ‘ When the food is all prepared it is taken to the hatching-house and one pill placed on the edge of. the fifth box in each row. One of the girls then goes round with a feeding spoon, and, beginning at the bot- tom box, presses the food through the perforated zinc of the feeding spoon, which reduces it into fine vermi- celli. When the threads are about two inches long they are shaken off into the water. . . .” ‘ In 1891 I sent circulars to several trout breeders asking a few questions. They were: “3. On what do you feed the fry for the first three months, and how?” “4. What do you consider to be a fair percentage of fry brought through the first six months, reckoning from the time of their first taking food?” ‘5. Do you feed -fry in hatching troughs? If so, how long?’ Here are some answers: Charles G. Atkins, Superintendent of Salmon Hatch- ing Station, U. S. F. C., East Orland, Me—‘3. In troughs on chopped liver for one month or six weeks, then part on same food and part on maggots; majority on maggots this year. From July 15 to 30, 1891, have fed about 200,000 on maggots. 4. Sixty per cent.; but we have done much better. In 1889, out of 109,- 965 Atlantic salmon eggs, counted in winter and early spring, we saved until the next October 91,856, or 83 per cent., actual count at start and finish; that is my very best. 5. All summer and fall, sometimes through the winter.” E. M. Robinson, Superintendent U. S. F. C., Mam- moth Springs, Ark.—‘‘3. Beef liver, but don’t approve it. 4. Seventy-five per cent. 5. No; we use ditches 5 feet wide, 15 to 20 feet long, and shaded half way the length.” 100 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. E. F. Boehm, Superintendent N. Y. F. C., Sacandaga Station —*3. Do not feed fry here; can’t get food. 4. Seventy-five per cent.” C. S. White, Romney, W. Va., Fish Commissioner.— “3. Milk in forms of clabber and curd, eggs, liver, lights, corn-bread and fish roe, fed upon sods, which are removed every three or four days. 4. Fifty per cent., averaging year by year. 5. About three weeks.” [I am not sure but Mr. White mistook the questions to mean adult trout.—F. M.] Dr. R. O. Sweeny, Superintendent U. S. F. C., Du- luth, Minn.—"3. Finely grated fresh, sweet livers, mixed with thick, sour curd of milk, of the consist- ency of paste, of such gravity and consistence as will drop from a spoon and sink to bottom of trough in a lump. 4. I think I can honestly say that the shrinkage is not over 10 per cent. 5. Have held them till August in the troughs, but they must not be crowded or there will be cannibalism.” George T. Mills, Commissioner for Nevada —‘3. Liver, boiled; when cool, grated in the trough; sour milk occasionally. 4. In State hatchery, 90 per cent. ; we do not keep fry longer than three months.” Albert Rackow, Elmont, N. Y., private ponds —‘3. Beef hearts and minnows. 4. I lost seven out of I0,- ooo. 5. I feed in troughs 6x12 feet and 8x24 feet.” [See question No. 3.] W. F. Page, Superintendent U. S. F. C., Neosho, Mo.—"3. Raw beef liver until 1} inches long, which they get to be here in five weeks after taking food; then gradually mix mush of ship-stuff with liver. 4. Eighty per cent. 5. Yes, about five weeks.” J. W. Hoxsie & Co., private ponds, Carolina, R. I.— Trout Breeding. tol “3, Pulp of sheep livers. 4. Eighty per cent. 5. Feed in troughs to six or eight weeks.” W. L. Gilbert, Old Colony Trout Ponds, Plymouth, Mass.—“3. Sheep livers. 4. Forty per cent. 5. Don't feed in hatching troughs:” Just before going to press these questions and an- swers were returned to the writers for correction after eight more years’ experience, but none of them made any. A letter from Mr. G. Hansen, Osceola, Wis.. March 26, 1899, says: “I feed fry up to one year old on beef liver and milk curd, mixed in the proportion of two parts liver to one of curd. I feed in troughs from February to May, sometimes until September, with good success, but prefer putting them in a nursery pond in May. The green slime, alge, bothers me some in the hatching house by clogging screens, therefore I re- move the iry. The wild fish give the best eggs.” COMMENTS ON THE METHODS OF FEEDING. As a summing up of this question of feeding fry, let me say: ‘There is nothing better than liver of beef, or perhaps other animals, from the start. Maggots are as good after the fish get big enough to swallow a full- grown one, and they do not drop until they are full grown. Trout in nature do not eat vegetable food, and while curd may be of value, I don't take a cent’s worth of stock in any admixture of vegetable matter. Under my management of the New York hatchery on Long Island, the yearling trout, at twelve months old, meas- ured from six to nine inches. No hatchery in the State could show such trout. This was partly owing .to crowding the food to them and partly to the tempera- 102 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. ture of the water. Such results might be obtained in places as far, or farther, south, but never in the colder waters of the mainland of New York. You cannot overfeed a young trout, nor offer it suit- able food too often, and upon its growth during its first few weeks of feeding depends its future development. Once a dwarf always a dwarf; and the fry need to be kept growing from the start, like pigs, or they will never catch up to their better fed fellows. Many fishculturists say, as Mr. Hansen does: “The wild fish give the best eggs.” Then there is a fault in over or under feeding at the breeding season. Fish properly fed in ponds should, like other domestic ani- mals, improve in fecundity and early maturity. INTRODUCING NEW BLOOD. This is a good thing in the breeding of cattle or fowls, but is not necessary with trout. With fowls and the cattle on the farm there is danger of in-breed- ing because the parents are so few, especially the sires. There was no such danger among the herds of buffalo and there is none among the trout in confinement. Take the eggs from 2,000 fish and fertilize them with the milt of 1,000 males; turn the progeny loose and breed from them two years later, and what are the chances of mating brother and sister? Even if this should hap- pen, as it may, the same thing is purposely done by breeders of horses and cattle who are trying to pro- duce the best stock. It was my policy to keep the thriftiest fish for breed- ers, and in the twelve years that I ran the Long Island hatchery the yearling trout increased from a maximum Trout Breeding. 103 length of six to nine inches. That shows what breed- ing from the best will do ina short time. If you have two or three thousand spawners you need not fear de- generation from in-breeding. You have few chances of in-breeding. Suppose that six thousand persons, equally divided as to sex, settle on a fertile island. There is no chance for extensive in-breeding. Keep your own stock; breed from the best quick-growing stock, and keep out all outside wild blood as you would keep out blood from the wild boar among your im- proved pigs, and go on and develop a breed of trout that will be as far above their wild fellows as a setter is above a wolf. If, however, you think you need new blood, don’t get it from wild trout, but from some other trout breeder ; exchange males with him as you would swap “roosters” with a neighbor. The breed of trout can never be improved by revert- ing to wild stock. That fallacy has retarded trout cul- ture many years. Jf your pond trout do not breed freely it is evident that you are not giving them the best treatment, either in food, flow of water, or some- thing else that they lack. GROWTH OF FRY. Our trout on Long Island were a wonder to the men from other hatcheries—five to six inches in October and seven to nine inches at less than a year old—but the warmer waters of Long Island had something to do with this growth. No amount of food would produce such fish in the cold waters of the Adirondacks. A man who had a great reputation as a fishculturist about 104 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. the time I began told me that “water is never too cold for a trout, nor too warm for a sucker.” He was wrong about trout, for they will develop faster in a tempera- ture of 65° Fahr. than in one ten degrees lower; their life is more active and their digestions are consequently quicker, hence their growth is greater. In its most southern habitat our brook trout excels its more northern kinsman, if food is equally plenty in both cases and if there is some depth to the water, for trout in mountain streams never grow large. AUTOMATIC FEEDERS. An automatic feeder would be a desirable thing, but a perfect one has not vet been found. When in charge of the American fishcultural display at the World’s Fisheries Exhibition in Berlin, in 1880, I saw a Ger- man device to lift a gate and let out food at intervals, regulated by a water-wheel, but it dropped it all at the head of the trough, where the strongest fish got the first whack at it and grew stronger and more able to sustain their advantage. Then there was an arm on a universal joint which dipped a spoon into the food, carried it over the trough and spilled it. All these things are useless; it is the small fellows down at the lower end which need to be fed as well as the others; neglect of them means death or a stunted lot of yearlings. The fish in a trough must have an equal chance to get food, and’any feeder which only feeds at the head of the trough is good for nothing. There is nothing like an intelligent man to do this work and to see fair play in all parts of a-pond or trough. Trout Breeding. 105 PUTTING OUT THE BABIES. In May the little fish should be put out in the sun- light and fed there. My rearing ponds were of yellow pine plank, 250 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep, with water 2 feet deep, made of 2-inch plank on sides and 1-inch on bottom, nailed to outside frames. This stretch was divided into six compartments by double screens of No. 8 wire-cloth, 18 inches apart, with a dam between the screens that was I inch higher than the pool below. If fish passed one screen they might be dipped out before passing the next one, for the little fellows will get through a crack if there is one. The screens were to prevent crowding in any part of the long rearing pond and to facilitate feeding. The fish in the upper pool fared best, for in addition to liver they had the first pick of the small crustaceans which came in from the reservoir. As the flow through these pools was about 600 gal- lons per minute, it was too strong for the little fellows all the time, and in a straight-away run a tired trout would be washed against the lower screen and die there. Tc prevent this there was a series of obstruc- tions put in, which created eddies of rest for the weary. These were either alternate projections from the sides, as in some fishways, or with dams clear across, but with the top two inches below the surface; four inches below this was a dam extending from above the surface to six inches below it. This arrangement caused the water to flow up from the bottom, over the dam and to the bottom again, leaving comparatively still water in the upper part, and after stemming the strong bot- tom current for a while a fish could find rest above; it 106 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. also kept food swirling around, for there were eddies and not a straight flow, and it also kept the bottom clean. In the ten “baby ponds” of 24 feet long, as de- scribed, we put 8,000 to 10,000 babies in the upper Frame FoR Flat Ver FoR REMOVING Fry FROM TROUGHS, BamBoo Hanore ; fh ew. BRASS WIRE. Make tT Two [wedHES MARRoOWER Tuan THE HatrcHinG [RoUGAS. Cover With ANILLINET and Por it ow PERFECTLY FLAT, HanoLE SEVEN INCHES. ones, leaving the three or four lower ones empty, but screened. The little fellows would get into these through cracks in the planks, loose screens or other Trout Breeding. 107 apertures, and then we would net them out and put them in the ponds above, for down stream were their yearling brothers, who would take them in out of the wet with pleasure. In July they need assorting in order to’keep the larg- est together, so that the smallest will have a chance to get their share of food, and the sorting should be done every six or eight weeks. In September they are down into the yearling ponds and the yearlings let into the upper breeding pond, for we may get a few small eggs from some, which in No- vember are twenty months old, counting from March of the year before. CHAPTER VII. STREAMS, As a rule a stream has to be taken as we find it, but often it can be improved for trout breeding or for fish- ing. If possible, make it more crooked, with deep pools, fallen logs for hiding places and shade, culti- vate alders or willows along the banks for shade and in- sect harbors, and, in fact, make as wild a stream of it, and one as difficult to fish, as it is possible, and you have done all that can be done to better it. Shade is loved by trout and it also keeps the waters cool. If you contemplate draining a swamp where cool springs trickle all over, and think of making a trout stream of the collected waters, the farther you can get from a straight line the better. Nature always works 108 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. to destroy straight lines, and no natural stream ever ran straight; even if water is fond of making a short- cut, it is still fonder of following the line of least re- sistance, and will dig out soft banks and make curves. If the banks are equally soft in a straight ditch where there is a good flow, the water will dig in at one side, rebound to the other, and so go back and forth until, if let alone, the stream will crook. See any natural stream coming down a level meadow—it is crooked. A trout does not love a sweeping, continuous cur- rent in a straight stream, but prefers pools, shallows, rapids, and all the variations which occur in natural streams, where it can exercise in the rapids or rest as it chooses. The more difficult it is made to reach the banks, through vines and alders, and the harder it is made to cast the fly or to wade the stream, the better the fishing will be to experts, and the more the angler will enjoy the hard-earned trout he gets from it. Moderately still places for spawning should be pro- vided, and if there is no gravel in the stream, dump in several wagon loads at different shallow places, for if there is no gravel in your stream the trout will leave it in spawning time and seek gravel elsewhere, and your stream will be barren. If it is a brawling mountain brook little can be done unless to deepen pools and make places where there will be eddies in times of freshets, so that the trout will not be washed out of their homes. Their tendency is to run up stream at such times, and they will do it if they can. The following, translated for “The Literary Digest,” shows the peculiarities of currents in streams: “The phenomena exhibited by rivers are treated in an article in “Der Stein der Weisen,” Vienna, June 15, Trout Breeding. 109 We reproduce the diagrams and give a translation of part of the text below: ““The most important factor in determining the cur- rent of a river is its speed, which increases with the fa!l and the quantity of water and diminishes with increase of the width of the channel. The speed varies also with the interior friction and with the friction of the water against the banks. “*The result of this is that not all parts of the cur- rent along a cross-section are moving at equal speed. The velocity increases in a vertical direction from the ground toward the surface, but it is greatest not at the surface but a little distance beneath it; likewise it in- creases at the surface itself from the banks toward the middle. The lines of equal velocity in a cross-section “take the form of half-elipses convex downward. It must be remarked further that the surface of the water is not horizontal, but sometimes convex and sometimes concave. It is the first in case a considerable mass of water with higher velocity (as at high water) moves in mid-stream, so that the middle of the river conveys more water than the sides. When the water is falling, a greater amount of water is flowing away at the mid- dle, and the surface becomes concave. In the Mississippi these oscillations of level measure as much as two metres (six feet). “ “Owing to the shape of the bed of the stream, espe- cially at the bottom, the water is deviated from a straight line, so that the line of greatest depth in the stream is curved. . . . If we observe the move- ment of the water from the banks to the middle of the stream we find that the water in the middle moves downward and then in a spiral path approaches first the bottom and then the bank,’ 110 Afodern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. “The author next proceeds to describe the formation of eddies, the commonest case being illustrated in Fig. ° Fic. 1. 1, which needs no explanation, the direction and course of the current being represented by arrows. Fig. 2 shows a curious spiral motion of the water due to the fact that the current on the two sides of the channel sometimes moves with different velocities, setting up a tendency to form a series of eddies. Fig. 3 shows the formation of two kinds of eddies, one in front and one behind an obstructing point of land, which approaches so near to the opposite bank as to deflect the current noticeably, producing the phenomenon known in the Danube as ‘Schwall’ (swell). Finally we have the continuous circling movements known as whirlpools, which require deep water and such conformation of the Trout Breeding. I1l banks as to direct the current in exactly the proper place for their formation. The article concludes with the following description of flood-phenomena : “‘In a swiftly flowing freshet the current at the surface is mostly in wave-motion. At the banks arise by reflection cross-waves which form with the others by interference of what are usually called “white caps.” Wwe Fie. 2. All the phenomena that appear during quiet flow are heightened in these times of flood—the eddies, the spiral movements, the whirlpools. Also the rapid wear- ing away of the sandy banks in places where the fric- tion of the current is most powerful makes the whole proceeding evident to the eye,’” 112. Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. CHAPTER VIII. PONDS. The first thing to be considered is the imtention of the owner and what he wishes to do with his pond or ponds. He may want as large a pond as possible in which trout will feed themselves and afford him fish- ing for himself and friends, or to market some trout each spring. He may wish to have a hatchery and rearing ponds to stock his main pond with, or to have a series of ponds in which to grow trout on artificial food. There are several ways in which trout may be culti- Trout Breeding. 113 vated, dependent upon the extent and character of the water and the inclination of the owner as to the amount of time he cares to devote to it, and the expense whicn he is willing to incur in beginning, which, as in most other affairs, bears some relation to the prospective re- sults. With proper facilities, intelligent fishculture will prove as remunerative as any of the minor indus- tries of the farm, such as bee and poultry keeping, but it is only very rare and exceptional places where it can be made a separate and distinct business which would warrant a person in devoting his whole time to it. Where the spring rises upon a farm and flows some distance through it, with some fall and space to make ponds, the conditions are most favorable. It is very difficult to give directions for making trout ponds which will be applicable to all places, but it is safe to say that the very worst location and form for them is in a ravine where they are made by a series of dams thrown across. Such an arrangement is sure to come to grief, sooner or later, and if the dams are so strongly made as to résist an unusual flood from suddenly melt- ed snow, or heavy rains, then the leaves and other riff- raff will clog the screens until the increased pressure carries them away and the fish have a chance to escape. The smaller the trout the more difficult it is to confine them, not only on account of their ability to escape through a small opening, but in consequence of their desire to continually seek that opening—a desire which is intense during their first year of life, but which de- creases until it is so much diminished that large fish, of say three-quarters of a pound, can hardly be driven from deep water. If only one pond is contemplated in which the fish are to be placed to seek their own food and care for 114. Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. themselves, then it may be made as large as the stream which supplies it will admit of—that is, it must not be so large that the water will get above 70° Fahr., in the bottom of the pond. Depth will give coolness, or if there are springs in the bottom the fish will congregate there at the hottest times, while the warmer water at the surface and shallow edge is favorable for the pro- duction of insect life for their food. The stream above can be covered with gravel as a spawning ground, and the young will have a chance to escape being devoured by the larger fish by keeping in the shallows. A pond of this kind was made at West Bloomfield, N. Y., on the farm of Mr. Stephen H. Ainsworth, a gentleman who was among the first to engage in trout culture in New York, beginnmg about the year 1858. He had a marshy spot of ground, formed by many small springs, whose united currents in the dryest times made a stream scarcely larger than a leadpencil; and digging this out he made a pond 5oxioo feet, which was 16 feet deep, and covered over, where he raised many fish under great difficulties. In a dry season the supply barely equaled the evaporation, and no water passed from the pond; and on several occasions he lost his largest fish from the heat, until, in the year 1871, he removed the trout and substituted black bass. Yet he had accomplished enough to be an authority upon trout culture in that day, and is now quoted to show what can be done with little means, although I should never advise any one with only his facilities to make an attempt at trout raising. And the point to which attention should be directed is the ratio of depth to sur- face in his pond; if he had exposed more surface to the weather, or made his pond less deep, he probably would never have kept a trout through the first summer. In Trout Breeding. 15 cases of a rise in the temperature the large fish are the first to suffer. LARGE SINGLE PONDS. It is difficult to give directions which will be suit- able for all places, but I will repeat that a dam in a ravine is the worst form. In such a place it seems bet- ter to make a small dam, and lead the water from it into ponds, at the side of the ravine, and let the floods go down the old channel. My own ponds, at Honeoye Falls, Monroe County, New York, were made in a piece of low, flat land, with a plough and road scraper, using the earth, gravel, etc., taken out to fill up around the ponds. Afterward they were finished with pick and shovel, and a dry stone wall laid around them merely to hold the banks, but they were small, only 60x15 feet and 5 feet deep. The first one built was laid in cement, but was no better than the others. In some places tere is muck enough to pay for the dig- ging in manure; but if the water can be kept off, such ponds are not expensive. Here is the cost of one of mine of the dimensions above given: Two men and team two days............ $10.00 One man with shovel two days.......... 3.00 Team and man hauling stone three days... 10.50 Man laying wall three days.........-.... 4.50 Screen DoX€S... 6... cece cece ee eececeees 3.00 Man one day ditching............0..04. 1.50 Total. cc.cdes eure seek se deaeeswes $32.50 The cost of stone was not added, as there was a quarry on the farm. 116 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. Naturally sloped banks of soil, sodded to below the water’s edge, are best for all ponds over 100x200 feet, but surface water must be kept out. All ponds of the size named I call “large,” because when we come to consider the ‘small ponds” of the professional fish- culturist it will be found that they are so narrow that every fish in them may be seen at all times. The single large pond can only be worked to its greatest capacity by having a hatchery, taking and hatching the eggs, rearing yearlings and turning them out in the following spring after the water has been drained off and all trout of the previous year taken out, thus raising and marketing two-year-old trout each year, and a trout above that age is worth no more than any other fish, in market. See chapter on “Market- able Trout.” All trout ponds should be drawn down once a year, or the trout will have a muddy flavor from decaying vegetation. The bottom of the pond should be flat, if not level, and the fish should be removed with a net, instead of draining off the water to take them out. One of my mistakes will illustrate this: An original idea, one of those which so often come out of the little end of the horn, was to have a drain-pipe at the bottom of the pond stopped with a plug, and then make a deeper place in the centre, so that when the water was drawn off the fish would be all there ready to be dipped out with a hand or scoop net. What could be more handy? An improvement! After being in use three years it became necessary to take out the large trout and trans- fer them to another pond, and the water was drawn off. When about a foot was left the fish began to get alarmed and rush around, stirring up the water, which had appeared like crystal, until the motion of the fish Trout Breeding. 117 could be seen, and when drawn down as low as pos- sible they naturally gathered in the pit, where they were dipped into tubs of clean water by a man in rub- ber boots. While in the pit they began to show signs of distress by keeping their noses out of the water, and the man who was dipping them said: “It smells like gunpowder.” Then another idea, not original, dawned : the fish were being asphyxiated by the foul gas or sul- phureted hydrogen! The sluice at the inlet was opened, but too late. Out of the 2,500 fine breeding fish, only 39 were saved; they died even after being placed in fresh water while still breathing, and an expensive lesson in the dear school of experience was learned. I had seen the Southern darkies muddy ponds when collecting speci- mens for me, and knew that this gas, which lies at the bottom of all waters in which there is anything to de- cay, was a deadly poison if stirred, but the thought never occurred that the fish would do their own ‘“mud- dying,” as the darkies called it. This experiment shows another fact: fish which feel secure in from three to four feet of water, and show no alarm at persons walking at the edge of the pond, and which will come readily to the surface to feed in your presence, or even take it from your hand, will, in water of not over a foot in depth, be as timid as wild fish just taken from the brook. Their sense of secur- ity is gone; hence it is better to take them with a net large enough to sweep the pond. It also shows what a little oversight or false reckoning may do toward sweep- ing away the results Of expenditure and labor. In fact there is none among our domestic animals more diffi- cult to manage, for the beginner, than trout, if they may be allowed to be domesticated; and their tendency to 118 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. go astray is excelled by the element in which they live, which is notorious for having a way of its own, which is never our way, and for seeking it at all times; hence in trout culture the great difficulties to be overcome are, to confine the water so that it is secure under ex- traordinary strains of flood and accident and to con- fine the fish—the latter being hardly as difficult as the former. If the owner does not care to go into the business of hatching trout for a succession, as described, he should provide good spawning places such as are mentioned in the preceding chapter, and see that nothing molests the spawning beds in winter. In this way he may get a few trout which escape the old ones, which will keep them from becoming too plenty. PONDS IN A SERIES. In making a series of ponds in which fish of different sizes are to be kept and fed a different system is pur- sued, the ponds being made small, in order that the water may be changed quickly, and so sustain more fish, and the stock can be seen and its condition known at all times. Such ponds may be 50 to 60 feet long by 10 to 12 wide and 4 to 6 deep, with sides of clay, if that is the material dug through, stone, or wood. A spawn- ing race should be made at the upper end, 20 to 30 feet long by 4 feet wide, the bottom sloping from 1 to 2 feet where it enters the pond; this will give the pond a shape like a long-necked bottle. There should be a fall of at least six inches from the pond above into the spawning race, more if the lay of the land will permit, in order to aerate the water. For need of this see chapter on “Transportation of Fish.” Trout Breeding. 119 The raceway should be covered with gravel at all times; for if the fish are not well, or are troubled with parasites, they resort to swift water and gravel bot- toms to rub their sides and clean themselves. This gravel should be from half an inch to an inch or more in diameter. In facing the pond with boards the pressure of the earth must be provided for, or the sides will soon fall in, or at least become badly bulged. To prevent this, lay timbers on the bottom and frame the uprights into them; nail the boards on the outside of the uprights, which should extend above the ground and be braced apart by joists running across the pond a foot or more above water. Even these will spring in time if not quite stiff. Ponds well built require but little work to keep them in order—an occasional stopping of muskrat or of crawfish holes, and in the spring to repair dam- age from frost, if any, or to patch up a bank or wall. There are hard soils where neither wood nor stone are needed (except on the spawning races, whose sides should be vertical), but may be made at a slope more or less inclined. Willows planted near the pond are valu- able as shade trees, or floats of boards may be of use in keeping the water cool, besides being a sort of protec- tion from the little kingfisher. Perhaps an account of the way I made the ponds for the New York State hatchery at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, will be of interest, for they involved great labor. I took charge on January 1, 1883, and started work. An old building was used to hatch eggs .ob- tained elsewhere, and there was a spring reservoir some 300 feet long by 20 wide, which had been made to turn a turbine wheel in the old building. This reservoir was high enough to bring water into troughs on the 120 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. floor of the second story, from where it went to the floor below and was again used. Some holes in swampy land below had been intended for trout ponds, but they were covered with water from the harbor at high tide and geese swam up to the haichery. The north side of the island is hillv, some hills being 200 feet above tide, and they are glacial drifts, sand, clay, gravel, etc., plowed out from the mainland by the ice. Such a hill was within 500 feet, and I filled the old holes with sand, leveling the swamp. Then “ponds” were staked out and left as the sand was dumped around them, on the principle that the Irish- man said cannon were made; said he: ‘They take a long hole and pour brass around it.” So we made ponds. These were temporary ponds, merely for use until the State could afford better, and the raceways were made of the cheapest hemlock boards. In 1887 there was an appropriation for a new hatch- ery made at the insistence of Commissioner Blackford, and 1 planned to put it as high as the inflow from the reservoir would bear, as the water went from the hatch- ery to the ponds, and when it, was up high we could control it. When the ground was staked out for the building the northwest corner was three feet above ground and the southeast was thirteen feet in the air. It looked queer, but the levels were correct. The foun- dation was built and I filled the grounds until there was no queer look ahout it. The old ponds were filled and new ones of sand built with their bottoms where the old surface was. For a time it was dangerous to step near a pond, but it settled hard. Walks and flower-beds were laid out and a road made east of the ponds, which is as solid to-day as can be. The sand holds water well. The Trout Breeding. 121 catting of sand and gravel cost the State much money, but it is worth it. It is the most important hatchery in the State of New York to-day. I established the culture of smelts, lobsters and tomcods there, and it Mr. Blackford had not been removed from the Con- mission for political reasons I would have made a park of the place and have gone on with experiments in hatching oysters and clams. But a change of adminis- tration led to my discharge, and to-day a great un- sightly ice-house stands in the centre of what was to be my “park,” and there is a stable where a “conserva- tory” for water plants and the breeding of fresh water crustaceans and insects was planned; and my dream of a wout park and all its adjuncts is over.. Blessed be the small-souled politicians, for they will never develop into anything greater! DRAINS. Tf the lay of the land permits it, there should be some way of lowering the water in order to clean the pond. ff the pond is dug in the soil there should be a drain- pipe put in, and this, if of wood, may be stopped by a plug. But a plug is difficult to get out when the water is several feet deep; a box on the inner end with a sliding gate which can be lifted by a hook fitting into a hole is better. Do not plug the lower end of the pipe and leave the upper end open or you have a harbor for eels, water-snakes, or at least a hiding place for a large cannibal trout, for a trout of that kind prefers solitude. If the drain is a square box-trunk it may be turned up at a right-angle and’ used as an overflow stand-pipe, if the water is not required to be kept up for any reason, 122 Modcrn Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. In this case make a sliding groove for the dams, which may be lifted one by one, and are kept down by pins or wedges at the top. Tile-pipe are not good for drains. I have laid them and relaid them many times, cementing them most care- fully and then reinforced the joints with another coat- ing of cement, but tree roots would force their way in somehow and either fill the pipe or break it. At Cold Spring Harbor, New York, I piped a spring from an upper level in six-inch tile-pipe, and it filled up with roots. In one case the root of a locust tree had found an entrance, and while only as thick as a sheet of letter- paper and half an inch wide where it went in, we took out thirty-seven feet of branching, matted roots, which nearly filled the pipe. Then I had the pipe relaid with extra care, but to no purpose; the roots would have water and knew how to get it, even where there was no leak. Here is a chance for a question about the habits of tree roots in their search for water; but having fought this “instinct” of roots for many years, I have given up trying to solve the riddle. Remembering these things, when we obtained an- other spring to bring down I bought four-inch iron “soil pipe,’ caulked the collars with oakum and then ran lead around: on the oakum. After this the lead was caulked. and the pipe will carry water for a cen- tury without interference from roots. This method, and pump logs, are the only means I know of to con- vey water underground without interference from roots, if there are trees near. A willow or a locust will send roots a hundred yards for water, if it is there, while on the other side of the tree the roots might not extend fifty feet. It is said that iron-filings mixed with cement will Trout Breeding. 123 keep roots from the joints of drain tile. Having no ex- perience with this, it is mentioned without comment. DAMS. These cannot be too carefully made to contend with pressure, leakage, muskrats, crawfish, frost and other things which are ever working to help water get to the lowest possible point. The following is from a news- paper which came after this chapter was begun: Nunpa, N. Y., Jan. 30, 1899.—Miller’s dam went out this morning. The washout, which resulted from un- dermining by muskrats, entails heavy loss to mill own- ers who have utilized the water. The disaster occurred at a time when the valuable ice crop was nearly ready to harvest. In building a dam, whether of earth, stone, logs or a combination of any or all of these materials, the greatest care must be taken to lay the foundation so deep that no trickle of water excavation, of muskrat or crawfish can go under it, and at the sides the dam should extend so far as to prevent such mishaps. So much depends upon the nature of the ground and the materials to be used that it is impossible to go fur- ther into the construction of dams than to say: Make them about twice as strong as you think they need be and—then make them a little stronger. SCREENS FOR PONDS. Screens should be made at least ten times larger than the space required for the water. For instance, if the flow will pass through a hole six inches square, the 124 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. screen should be at the least calculation nineteen inches each way, giving 361 square inches, which will allow for some portions of it to become clogged, and yet pass the water through easily; this also diminishes the chance of stoppage by its slower flow. A good form for a small outlet is a trough, say six feet long by two feet wide and twenty inches deep, with a dam near the lower end about fifteen inches high. When the screens are placed in this, above the dam, slanting the top down stream at an angle of 45 degrees, it gives a good screen surface, the dam being placed at the height at which the water is to stand in the pond and the screen made to slide between slats. Great care must be taken in setting such a trough, if in earth, that the water does not work around and under it, or that frost does not lift it out of place; the former may be provided for by wide flanges, which make a sort of bulkhead and obstruct the direct passage of crawfish, earthwormis or other borers, which, by starting a small leak, will soon cause a large one before its presence is suspected. To guard against up- heaval by frost, in a climate where the brook trout love to dwell, is a more difficult matter ; but my own experi- ence on this point leads to a preference for light soils for tamping around the outlet box, instead of clay, which I first used on account of its resistance to water, but afterward abandoned, after a winter’s fight with frost, in favorjof a sandy, gravelly soil which was found to serve the purpose as well, as far as the frost was con- cerned, but which afforded excellent digging for the crawfish (fresh-water lobster) with which the stream was infested, and whose tunnels, once made in clay, never by any chance closed up; and, knowing their dis- like to work in either sawdust or tanbark, a space of about a foot was filled with these materials so that there Trout Breeding. 125 was a barrier running around the box, backed in front and rear by soil which was thought to be the least affect- ed by frost. The screens should be made with as large spaces be- tween the slats or wires as the size of ‘he fish demands, and it will be found convenient to have the outlet boxes of the different ponds and the frames all of one size, so as to be readily interchangeable. The wires or slats for the fish of half a pound and over may have a half inch space between them, and for this purpose well galvan- ized iron wire is best, or, if not convenient, a screen can be made of planed lath, set edgeways; while for year- lings well tarred wire cloth of four wires to the inch is necessary, and for the fry during the first months at least fourteen wires to the inch. Screens for the inlets are best placed perpendicularly, in order that no trout may lie under them and shoot up stream when the screen is raised. The disposition of water to find its own way, and that way being always different from our way, combined with the disposition of trout, in their younger days, to prefer any location rather than that which we have provided for them, renders the subject of screens and appliances for confining them a very im- portant one to the fishculturist, and one liable to defeat all his calculations and waste all his time, labor and money, if not properly considered. I have kept sharks and whales in confinement, and have seen the wildest of beasts and birds so kept, but of all animals that man confines there is none so uncertain to be found in the morning, where it was apparently so secure the night before, as a brook trout of an inch and a half long. It is an impossibility to confine them in a stream, and very difficult in a pond, as a crack or worm hole in a board, or in the earth or masonry, will be found by a hundred 126 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. little eyes, and its size tested by half as many heads: and if water flows through it, they are very apt to fol- low, no matter where it may lead, nor whether return is possible. The instinct of a trout impels it to jump ata fall or in going up stream, hence provision must be made to stop them from leaping over the inlet screen by a projecting board or other device, more especially in the fall of the year, when they wish to ascend to the upper waters to seek suitable places for spawning. If the fry are kept for the first nine months or a year in “rearing boxes,” it is not so hard to confine them as it is in the outdoor ponds, where the woodwork has to be fitted into the earth; and this system has its advan- tages, which are security of confinement, compactness, the ease with which they can be inspected and the larger ones removed from their weaker brethren, and the pro- tection from bird, beast, reptile and insect enemies to which their relatives in the outdoor pond are exposed. To counterbalance these advantages, we have in the rearing boxes more care and labor, and less natural food. Still, if the labor can be given, it is the surest way, for the first three months at least, after which time they are better able to stand the exposure of outdoor ponds and avoid their enemies, which decrease in num- bers with increasing size. There is always one fence in summer time which de- tains the trout more effectually than any screen. This is the stream of warm water which the trout brook emp- ties into, and, although they may seek its depths for food in winter after running down off the spawning beds, the first hint of a rising temperature sends them back to the cooler spring waters. A good self-cleaning screen for large trout is a re- volving cylinder of wire cloth. Make disks of eighteen Trout Breeding. 127 inches with four strips to stiffen the cylinder and cover ' this with No. 2 wire cloth. Run an axle through it and set it so that it will revolve in the current, with six inches of water to turu it; 7. e., set it in water to that depth. fe Ls Av =) os . ic = ) Me Ky A ie Forms OF Fisuways. floated up, the foot of the fishway was in the air. The figures show several models for retarding the water. CHAPTER XLV FISHES WHICH GUARD THEIR YOUNG. A correspondent asks: “Is there any other fish be- sides the dogfish which guards its young?" He refers to the fresh-water dogfish, -liia calva, called in the West and South lawyer, bowfin, John .\. Grindle and Miscellaneous. 321 Johnny Grindle, while in Vermont it is the “mudfish.” Of this fish Mr. Charles Hallock says in his Sports- man’s Gazetteer: ‘‘While the parent still remains with the young, if the family become suddenly alarmed, the capacious mouth of the old fish will open, and in rushes the entire host of little ones; the ugly maw is at once closed and off she rushes to a place of security, when the little captives are set at liberty. If others are con- versant with the above facts, I shall be very glad; if not, shall feel chagrined for not making them known long ago.” Mr, Hallock’s book was printed in 1877, and I do not remember to have seen this matter re- ferred to since, except that his remarks are quoted in the Fisheries Industries (1884), Section I., page 659. There are many fresh-water fishes which guard their young, and it is my belief, based on the capture and dissection of many individuals, that it is the male which does the guarding. All the catfish tribe guard their young until they scatter, swimming below the little black school for several days. Black bass, rock bass, sticklebacks and all the sunfishes guard both eggs and young until the brood separates in search of food. It is possible that the crappies also guard their young, but I do not know their habits in this respect. There is a beautiful little fish in India, brought here for ornamental purposes, called paradise fish. I have bred them in small tanks; the male makes a floating nest of air bubbies among the weeds and coaxes the female to deposit her eggs therein, but after she has done that he will not let her go near the nest, and hunts her to the furthest corner, sometimes killing her. He fans the eggs, and when the young hatch and wander from the nest he will take them in his mouth and re- turn them. Some of the sticklebacks make elaborate 322 «Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. nests of twigs and the male takes entire charge of the household. The male sea-horse, Hippocampus, has a pouch like a marsupial, in place of an anal fin, in which the female lays her eggs and he cares for them and their young. The males of some tropical fishes are said to carry and hatch the eggs in their mouths. CHAPTER XLVI. HOW FISH FIND THEIR OWN RIVERS. On this subject the late Professor James W. Milner wrote some years ago in Harper’s Afagazine, and really nothing more is known about it to-day. He said: “The long held and only recently rejected theory that the shoals of fishes moved in a vast mass along the coast, sending off detachments into each river as they passed its mouth, is to be attributed to John Gilpin and some other authors, who have written flowingly on the sub- ject. The recent careful investigations of naturalists indicate that the anadromous fishes, those entering the rivers and bodies of fresh water from the sea, do not have an extended range in the ocean, and that each river's colony remains, after returning, in the deep waters opposite their river. The motive for the move- ment of these shoals of anadromous fishes. or rather how it is incited, has scarcely been explained. The life of the fishes has always been a mystery. It is not a search for food, as they do not eat while in fresh water ; Miscellancous. 323 the opening of hundreds of stomachs will fail to find food present. It is an easy disposal of the question as to how each colony recognizes its native river to say that ‘it is instinctive.’ So it is, also, when the butcher’s horse recognizes the familiar gates; but we have some’ evidence as to what senses he uses. The fishes, prob- ably prompted by functional disturbance from the tumid ovaries and spermaries, are incited to movement. The courses of the sea, unmarked as they are, are, within each colony's limit, their habitual pathways. An unerring capacity in the fish for finding its own river may be no mor than that which guides the hermit- crab to the shell of the natica. The latter goes to hide iis sensitive body, with an apparent nervous trepidation at its unprotected condition. The former, with an un- easiness of body from the functional changes it is undergoing, is impelled to activity. The transmitted habit of ascending the stream is, as it were, blended and alloyed with the substance of the nerves, and, aroused by its condition, carries it, without conscious purpose, into the river of its progenitors and its own. The im- pulses of the fish are only in a slightly more compli- cated series than those of the crab. That it should be the instinct for a specific stream, established through inheritance of many generations, is easier to under- stand than that it is a sort of memory of the place of its immature life, as the theory of fishculture makes it and as observation seems to sustain. In the waters of the Delaware, where there were no salmon originally, the young salmon placed in Bushkill Creek returned after five years and were taken, not only in the Dela- ware River, but the larger number in the neighborhood of Bushkill Creek. It is not essential that all fishes should have this impelling influence, whatever it may 324 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. be, as, like gregarious mammals and birds, they flock together, following the leadership of whichever for the time takes it. The idea is suggested that the senses may be the guiding agent, that a fish goes nosing along the coast, or tasting the streams, until it recognizes its own. The convexity of the cornea must afford the fishes a very limited range of vision. The supposed dullness of the sense of smell and of taste in fishes might alone dispose of the suggestion that these are em- ployed. The following occurrence, however, would seem to decide to the contrary: The Russian River, emptying into the Pacific, north of San Francisco, had its mouth entirely closed by the waves during the storm. The colony of salmon made their yearly mi- gration from the deep waters toward the mouth of the river, and many of them raced through the surf and landed high and dry on the sand that walled them out from their native river. The migration of the salmon into some of the Pacific rivers is a frenzied advance over snoals, rapids and cascades, far into thin streams and brooks, where they arrive battered and weary. to accomplish their exhaustive reproductive labors and drop back, the sport of the current, dead and dying, toward the sea.” CHAPTER XLVII. DYNAMITING A LAKE, Hodge Lake, on the head waters of the Willowemoc, Sullivan Co., N. Y., was populated with eels, pickerel, Miscellaneous, 325 catfish, perch and sunfish. The owner wished to clear his pond of all these, render it lifeless and then restock it with trout, for the waters were cool enough in sum- mer! In April, 1899, 200 holes, fifty feet apart, were cut through the ice and dynamite in half-pound sticks, twelve to each hole, were lowered to within four feet of the bottom. Each lot of sticks was connected by wire to electric batteries, so arranged that there would be three explosions about half a second apart. The but- ton was pressed and columns of ice and water, from 10 to 15 feet in diameter, went up a hundred feet or more. The concussion shook the earth about the shores and the lake was barren of fish, insect larvae and crusta- ceans. The larve will all come back, but the owner will have to see to the vegetation and the crustaceans. If he gets his plants from neighboring lakes of the same character he will get all thesc forms entangled in it without paying further attention to them. CHAPTER XLVIITI. TO MEASURE A FLOW OF WATER. Often a correspondent seeks advice about trout ponds and to a question regarding the highest tempera- tures and the amount of water flowing in the driest time, replies that he is ignorant on these points. The temperatures he can get with more or less accuracy, dependent on the unreliability of cheap. and untested thermometers; but the amount of flow is usually a 326 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. matter of wild guessing. An expert can guess with some nearness by a mental estimate of how long it would take a stream to fill-a certain tank, but this is only a guess. I had seen tables given in an algebraic form, which, as far as | am concerned, might as weil never have been written, for, while as a schoolboy I was forced through such studies, I promptly forgot them. Anything mathematical was too heavy for a brain not fitted to bear such burdens. Yet I must tell in this book how to do the trick with exactness, and the occasion brought the man, as usual. I wrote to a friend, Mr. W. B. Osterhout, of I*reeport, N. Y., one of the engineers of the Brooklyn Water Works. He writes: “Cot. Frep Maruer: It gives me great pleasure to comply with your request of March 30. The for- mula of which you speak is known as Francis’ formula and is for measuring the discharge of water over a weir: Q=3.33XL XH? or Q=3.33XLX [HP O= Cubic feet of water per second; L=Length of weir: H=Head or depth of overflow. Fig 3. “The conditions are: The inner face of weir, as A B (Fig. 2), must be not less than twice the depth of over- flow, as A M measured from A to horizontal portion of water’s surface, A to M, and not to curved surfaces, at C, and the length of A A of weir (Fig. 1) not less Afiscellaneous. 327 than three times the head, A M. The formula given is for a weir without end contractions, as Fig. 1; that is, the width of flume leading to weir must be the same width as the overflow and not contracted, as in Fig. 3. After getting Q, or cubic feet of water flowing per second, it is easily reduced to gallons flowing per min- ute, hour or day. As there are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot and 231 cubic inches in a gallon, a cubic foot of water contains 1,728 inches divided by 231 inches, or 7.4805194 gallons, or nearly 74 gallons. The flow is generally calculated for the number of gallons per day of twenty-four hours.” There must be other mathematical dunces, and so I wrote Mr. Osterhout that his formula was no doubt correct, but was not in the shape to be “understanded by the people’; also that fishculturists reckoned the flow per hour, and that if he would kindly translate this formula into a flow per hour per foot width of dam it would just hit the mark. Then he got down to the fishcultural level and wrote: “Cot, Frep Matuer: Your mathematical difficulties are appreciated and I enclose you a table, showing gal- lons per hour discharged by a one-foot weir for depths from 0 to 1 foot. I have also put in the decimal of a foot corresponding to each half inch. For any weir other than one foot in length multiply the number of gallons opposite any head by length of weir. “Example-—How many gallons per hour will flow over a 4-foot weir, with a head of 3} inches? 14,128 4=56,512 gallons. If the weir is 4 feet 5 inches long, the 14,128 for a head of 34 inches must be multiplied by 328 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 4.4167, the decimal .4167 being equivalent to 5 inches, which is shown in the first column.” Now that my engineering friend had got down to the water level of the fishculturist, there was nothing to do but to give his latest formula, and here you have it in his own words: FRANCIS’ FORMULA: Discharge in cubic feet per second = 3.33 x length of overfall in feet x V cube of head in feet. 7 Discharge in gallons per hour = 3.33 Xby length of overfall in feet x V cube of head in feet < 7.4805 3,600, 7.4805 = number of gallons in one cubic foot of water or very nearly 7}. 3,600 = number of seconds per hour. Discharge in gallons per hour of a aweir one foot long without end con- tractions for depth from 0 to one foot. Head in | Headin| Gallons per Head in | Headin| Gallons per Feet, Inches. Hour. Feet. | Inches. Hour. oil 0.0417 M% 164 0.5417 64, 35,753 0.0833 1 2.156 0 5833 i 39,950 0°1250 14 3,963 0.6250 vies 44.310 0.1667 ra 6,104 0.6667 8 48,817 0.2083 ots 8,525 0.7083 814 53,457 0.2500 3 11,210 0.7500 9 58,246 0.2917 315 14,128 0.7917 913 63,171 0.3333 4 17,256 0.8333 10 68,215 0.3750 43s 20,593 0.8750 1044 73,399 0.4167 5 24,122 0.9167 78,708 0.4583 Sts 27,823 0.9583 11's 84,126 0.5000 6 31,705 1.0000 12 89,676 ADDENDA. JANUARY 1, 1900. GROWTH OF TROUT. We are always learning, and in 1899, after what I have written, I went to the northwestern corner of Wis- consin, up the Brule River, to take charge for a short time of a large trout preserve belonging to a gentle- man living in St. Louis. Fishcultural operations had been going on for several years previous, and the year- ling trout were only 2} to 4 inches long; while the two-year-olds would not average over 6 inches. They had been well fed, but the water was cold and they had not the appetites of the trout of the warmer waters of Long Island. The springs were 43° Fahr., and the pools in sum- mer never rose above 50°. These pools were made at the outlet of a small pond of some 4 acres and in swift water. If I should remain here, as I shall not, I would make the rearing pools where there are no springs, and where the ice makes thickest in winter. This would give warmer water in summer and a great- er consumption of food ; consequently a greater growth. 329 330 Addenda. The water in hatching troughs there, up to Jan. 1, 1900, has varied from 38° to 36° Fahr., more often at the lower figure. GRAYLING. Since the book was in type I have had further ex- perience with the grayling. The eggs came from Mon- tana to northern Wisconsin in May, 1899, in very bad shape. Of the few hatched a very small number lived to take food, and of these 80 per cent. died before the close of the year. Mr. S. P. Wires, Superintendent of the U.S. F. C. Station at Duluth, Minn., has no liking for the fish, if he is expected to feed and raise it. Mr. Frank N. Clark, of the Michigan stations, is of the same opinion. They find the eggs hatch well enough, but beef liver is not the food for them, and the best thing to do is to turn them out when they begin to take food, and this is my more mature view of the fish. My first experience was somehow more fortunate than that of later years. All agree that the adult fish does not mature its eggs in confinement. INDEX. PAGE “Acre of Water’”........ 16 Alewives .............4- 243 American Fish Culturists Association .......... 9 Basses. the Black....... 213 Bath Hatchery.......... 44 Batrachians ............ 269. Beef Lights and Maggots. 130 Bell and Mather Hatch- INS Coney.c awed es x 199 Birds that Destroy Fish.. 276: Black: Fish, «2..neseess- ex's 290 Bladderwort ............ 278 Blooming of Ponds...... 311 Blue-Back Trout........ 146, Brook Trout............ 146 Brown Trout........146, 149 Bullhead: vio: vse co nmedes 239 Bullpouts) 53.245 os sogenaciis 239 Bull-Trout ............. 146 Garp) dann a's deasese 20, 241 Gat Fish: ¢ yee: + sanaitane 239 Cate. ascaineirgeveet eee 287 Chambers. W. Oldham.. 76 Channel: Cates co. ssce oe 240 Ghars. sec mtiareeniinceeeaes 146. Chase Jar.............-- 203 Chemicals .............. 24 Chester Tidal Hecker. . 205 Chinese Fishculture..... 13 Chinook ci vivswssdsecess 146° God teste lesen teat 290, 292 Cold Spring Harbor. Satara ie) Crappies ...........0... 221 Cut-Throat Trout....... 146 CyClOps® esi cea kanes 133 Dams: i456. cesece esses 123 331 PAGE Disease: . vs aswclene eyes 255 Dobson « ys waveiwasyoes 281 Dog Salmon............ 146 Dog Fas Mis, eave ssinsestiayent: 321 Dolly Varden Trout..... 140 Domestication of Fish. .19, 20 Dragon Fly............. 280 DRAINS 25 pee aiavcienemiwace’s 121 Dynamiting a Lake..:... 324 Egg Impregnation....... 62 Egg Packing for Ship- MECNE .syse sae Gnaeuewan 72 Eggs, Adhesive.......... 207 Eggs in Fels............ 309 Eggs in Fish, table of.... 310 Eggs in Sunfish......... 309 Egg Transportation..... 72 Enemies ...............- 267 Epidemics .............. 260 Feeders, Automatic...... 104 Pilters. weewkow o's saecdces 56 Fingerlings ............. 138 Fish, Barren............ 204 Fish as Food for Fish... 131 Fishculture Antiquity.... 13 Fish Return to Rivers... 322 Fishways ............... 18 Fish which Guard Their NOUNS? oodsclaneenates 320 HIOORS: a2%cs axes eases: 44 Flounder ............... 290 Flow Measurement 325 Foods for Fry........ 92, 106 Foods for Trout Pond... 136 Frog Culture............ 301 b PROBS) a goa ct8 sad ns eencoe 269 P Frost Pushin iecawdng oan 208 332 PAGE Fry; care Of. 0.6 cccccane 86 Fry Feeding............. 92 Fry Growth.........103, 329 Fry vs. Fingerlings...... 138 Fry Planting............ 138 GamMMarus ass s ses easiewe 132 Gravel. :ccigiaa yeeebigwds 81 Grayling: