The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-06-10
MYRIADs OF LITTLE FISH.

MYRIADs OF LITTLE FISH.
How They Are Matched at the Cold
Spring Harbor, New FORK Hatchery.
~We have here" said Superintendent
Mather, with comprehensive wave OF
the hand that took in both the houses
and the vats beyond, and even the dis
tant duck pond, facilities for Matching
much fewer eggs than we should have.
The capacity of the establishment should
be doubled at least. The practical use
fulness of this method of enlarging our
food supply has now been demonstrated
beyond question, and it is really matter
of serious interest to all the people of the
state that this hatchery should be so de-
veloped as to get the greatest possible
good from it. There is no place in the
land SO well adapted by nature as this
for hatchery. We have an abundant,
never-failing supply of cold, fresh water,
sufficient to keep our thirtytwo Matching
troughs full all the year through, if we
needed them so. 1t comes from natural
springs in the hill, so surprisingly high
up that it is a constant wonder to me how
bAOoC 6PAAAS5O 1AO AC0s 4AC bWnt
that its fall supplies is just what we
want in certain stages of the Matching
process. Then, by means of pumping
engine, we can have equally handy an
ample supply of pure salt water drawn at
high tide as required and stored in that
reservoir. Or, at least, we can do SO
when the intense cold does not freeze the
water solid in the pipes and burst them,
as it did this winter, spelling at one fell
blow our most interesting, and, up to
that time, highly successful Matching of
some 100000 cod eggs. The fact is
that we have had ice six or eight inches
deep all over the floor of this miserable
barrack of place most of the winter,
and the pipes froze solid within five feet
of big red hot stove, so you may Judge
if the winter winds got in here to any
considerable extent.
Nearly all the Matching is done in
winter. Trout, in which there is most
popular interest, begin spawning in No
vember, and do not get through until
January. We get eggs here from some
large breeding trout that we keep in
those ponds outside for the purpose, and
also from tie hatchery at Caledonia,
from Maine, and from Europe. The
eggs having been impregnated, change
from the flabby condition in which they
were extruded by the female fish, de-
tach themselves from the bottom of the
pan in which they were gathered, and
grow larger and quite hard. Then they
are washed and spread upon wire cloth
Matching trays, the interstices in which
are large enough for the young fry, as
Matched to drop through, leaving the
shells ON the tray. Throughout the pro-
cess of Matching, which takes from sixty
to eighty days, according to the temper
ature of the water, the eggs must be
carefully tended every to keep them free
from sediment, to have the temperature
of the water as cold as possible, and to
regulate the current over them Just
right. While Matching is going on the
water only covers the water to a depth
of an inch, but when the young fry have
all appeared, its depth is increased to
five inches.
Each little trout, when Matched, has
an abdominal sac of nutriment, larger
than himself, which he gradually alb
serbs. When its yellow bulk is all gone
and he looks like seni-transparent pin,
not quite an inch long, he is Immediately
hungry, and begins looking for food.
That is the time when he should be put
out in a brook somewhere, to look out
for himself, and where there will be no
sunfish, pickerel, or other bigger fish to
look out for him. 1t takes him forty or
fifty days to exhaust the magazine of
provisions with which he comes into the
world. With good feeding, at the end
of his first year he should have grown to
be from four to five inches in length.
At 2 years of age, the trout should be
seven or eight inches long, and at
years, when his weight is from quarter
to half pound, he becomes an object of
interest to the scientific angler. Some
female trout spawn when only 2 years
old, but their eggs are not numerous.
At years, one will yield from 400 to
800, and occasionally as high as 1000
eggs. 1t has been affirmed that a trout
will yield 1000 eggs to every pound of
its weight, but my experience does not
warrant me in expecting anything like
so much.
"The manner of obtaining the eggs of
other fishes and impregnating them is
the same as with the trout, but the
methods of Matching differ very widely.
Some eggs-those of the cod, for in
float. Shad eggs are so
nicely balanced that they will just keep
off the bottom in moving water and sink
to it where the water is still. Salmon
and trout eggs lie on the bottom, free
from each other. The eggs of the smelt,
white perch, herring, and others, cluster
together in masses. To meet all their
various requirements requires very diff
ferent conditions and incessant pains
taking care. To say that smelt Matching
Is exasperatingly troublesome and un-
as rule, is to state the case
very mildly. They get themselves into
great masses in the Matching jars, be-
come covered with a thick fungus, lots
Of them die and don't smell nice, and, in
short, they are exasperating. Let me
show you how an almost Matched smelt
looks in the egg"
1t must not be supposed that Mr..
Adather reels all that off like lecture, as
# he had been wound up for the oc-
casion, though he could easily do that |
and very much more, as the Icthyophagn |
stand ready to attest. Finally the micro
scope is brought into rfquisition. Sew |
sral smelt eggs are attached from the |
nurky mass in one of the Jars and laid |
N a small crystal saucer In a few drops |
Of water. There they look like atoms of |
he clearest glass. Under the micro |
,cope the fish is clearly visible. The |
syes are big and staring, and the out
ines of head, body, and tail are dis
;ernible. Fancy a smelt coiled up in
Iide an exceedingly minute glass PIN
head. That is the way it looks. But
when it Is Matched out it viii be very
args comparatively-almost as big as
,ue of the ~wiggIerss from which de-
7eIop New Jerseys emblematic bird, the
nusquito.-Cold Spring Harbor Cor.
New York Sun.