, 1886-05-25
MYRlAps OF LITTLE FISH.
How The, Arc natehea ut the Gold


how The, Arc Hatched Mt the Cold
Spring Harbor, New York Hatchery.
I'VE have here said Superintendent
Mather. with a Comprehensive wave of
the hand that took in both the houses
and the watts beyond. and even the die
tant duck pond, facilities for hetching
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 SUNNY has now been demonstrate
beyond question. and it is really a 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 a hatchery. We have an abundant.
never-failing supply of cold. fresh water.
sufficient To keep our thirty-two Matching
troughs full all the year through, if we
needed them so. 1t IN from natural
springs in the hill, SO surprisingly high
up that ii is n constant wonder to me how
those springs are fed. The swift current
that its fall supplies is Just what we
want in certain stages of the patching
process. Then, by means of a 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, spoiiing at one fell
blow our most interesting, and, up to
that time, highly successful Matching of
some 1000, 900 cod eggs. The fact Is
that we have had ice six or eight inches
deep all over the floor of this miserable
barrack of a place most of the winter,
and tile pipes froze solid within five feet
of a 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 the hatchery nj Caledonia.
from Maine, and from Europe. The
eggs having been impregnated. change
from the fabby 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 unon wire cloth
Matching travs. the interstices in which
are large enough for the youne fry. as
l..II " t
shells on the tray. T%hrourhout the nro-
cess of Matching. which takes from sixty
to eighty DAYS, according to the temper.
azure of the water. the eggs must bs
carefully tended every to keen them free
from sediment. to have the temperat;ire
of the water AS cold as possible. and te
regulate the current over them lust
right. While Matching is going on the
water only covers the water to a depth
of an inch, but when the young fry hav.
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 a semi-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 n brook somewhere. to look out
for himself, and where there will be no
suniish. 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.
seven or eight inches long, and at 8
years, when his weight is from a quarter
to half Il pound, he becomes an object of
interest to the scientific angler. Some
female trout spawn when only 9 years
old. but their eggs are not numerous.
800, and occasionally as high as 1000
eggs. 1t has been affirmed that n 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
stance-will 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