St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1910-03-16

and all have big umbilical sacs or bread
| baskets where their stomachs ought to
/ be.
| Into one of these troughs the fish cul-
tuTist puts the little waif from the city.
What wriggling mass of fish it is to
which this little stranger is introduced.
Not until the trough is darkened by a
| cover do they become quiet.
Every day the fish man looks over
each trough to see how the eggs and fish
are getting along. The minute a cover
| is removed the fry begin to wriggle-6rst
one, then those next to him, and so the
| motion spreads until the entire mass is
| moving. Each one spins around on his
portly abdomen, at the same time strug-
Cling to stem the current. Thus there is
tendency of the entire mass to move
towards the head of the trough where
the falling water assists the whirling
movement, and this the fish man
describes as rhythm of motion.
In his daily rounds the fish man cleans
the screens at the ends of the troughs
placed there to prevent the escape of the
fry. Otherwise they will become clog
ged with egg shells and dead fish.
Of course, there are some dead ones
each day, for what else can be expected
from 40, 900 baby fish crowded into one
trough IL or Il feet long and as many
inches wide? There are many oddly
shaped little fishes which do not live
after the bread basket is all gone, so the
fish man picks these out-fshes with
three heads or two heads and one body,
Siamese twins, and hump-backs. Of
these and other detormities too numer-
Gus to mention, the fish man always
finds from ten to one hundred in every
trough of fish.
After a month or six weeks the umbili-
cal sacs have been so nearly efnptied
that you cannot see what has become of
them, and all the time the fish have been
growing stronger and larger. You
might not notice the growth because of
the disappearance of the bread sacs,
which are so prominent when the fish
first pop out of the eggs.
The troughs become OVercrOwded, and
this is a favorable season of the year to
plant some of the fry where they can
seek natural food when they become
hungry, and hungry they surely will be
soon after the bread sacs have been
absorbed. So one-haH of the fry are
taken from each trough, measured out
just as you might measure small Dip
per of berries, and placed in large cans of
water. The fish man has first counted
out one dipperful of fish, in order that he
may know just how many he is distribut-
ing. Then, too, it is desirable for him to
measure them, for he must be careful not
to OvercrOwd the cans, or the fish will
be made sick or will smother. The cans
are loaded on to wagons and hauled to
little spring brooks, where the fisk are
carefully distributed, with the expecta-
ton that as they grow larger they will
work their way down into larger
streams.
W., Ill ,,a~1,, 80 a.. L,ox +La Gel,
man can count dipperful of wriggling
fry. He first fills the dipper with the lit
tie fish until they crowd it full to the
brim and there is very little room for
any water. Then he empties them into
a pan of water. All this is done so
quickly that the little fellows do not suf-
fer any injury from being crowded.
While the fish are scattered in the pan of
water, they are dipped out, a few at
time. by means of a small, fiat net and
then counted as they are dipped. Hav-
standard for measuring the others.
There are other ways of getting at the
number of small fish, but this is a quick
and fairly accurate one.
At the end of another week the fifteen
thousand fry in the trough with our
orphan. show signs of hunger by snap
ping at any particle floating on the
water. Instead of wriggling about in
the bottom of the trough they are now
fu1l-fedged little fishes, swimming at
various depths from the bottom to the
top.
Now is the critical time with the fry,
for they must be fed several times each
day. The food usually consists of liver,
ground very fine and then strained, only
the liquid part being suitable for the
baby fish. This is scattered in the
water, and most of the little fish learn
to take it eagerly, but there are always
some weaklings which do not eat and
must be removed. At the end of ten
days the fish have grown so rapidly
that they are again thinned out, part
of them being placed in out-of-door
troughs.
ITO be continued).