FISH BREEDING. The subject of fish breeding has attracted increased attention from year to year, and as a productive industry it has assumed large proportions, especially since improved means of transportation for the eggs have been largely perfected. So between arti ficial fecundation and artificial spawning beds, the operator or breeder must decide for himself. The illustration we give will show a form well adapted for an artificial bed upon which fish may spawn. In relation to the use of these artificial beds, M. Blanchard, in his work on the fresh water fishes of France has the following: In view of the present condition of the rivers and canals of France, the idea of artificial spawning beds would appear to be a most happy one. M. Millet, before the Society of Acclima tization, has insisted, with great earnestness, on the preference to be given, in many cases, to artificial spawning beds over artificial fecunda tion. M. Coste has justly remarked that arti ficial fecundation is not all-sufficient, and yet a contrary opinion is gAnerally prevalent. No one has forgotten the marvellous results which we were to obtain by means of artificial fecunda tion; fishes, left to themselves, could not thrive and have a numerous progeny. Their duties should be assumed by us, and 'the advantages would be incalculable. More than fifteen years have elapsed since these seductive announce ments were made, without having yet furnished brilliant results. Among fishes, some, as the salmon, deposit their ova in slight excavations, in gravel, or in the interstices between stones; others, as the perches and cyprinids, (carp, bream, roach, etc.,) attach their ova, aggluti nated together by means of a viscid matter, to aquatic plants, stones, or any bodies to which their eggs can be fixed. It is especially for the last that artificial spawning beds might some times be advantageously prepared. The con struction of an artificial spawning bed is a very simple matter. A framework of sticks or laths should be made, and to such framework, boughs, furze, and aquatic plants should be fastened by cords, in such a way as to form irregular structures. It is also easy to give to structures of this kind a circular form, by taking hoops for frameworks. The form, and espec ially the size to be given to these spawning beds, would necessarily vary, according to the char acter or the size of the body of water in which they are to be immersed. They should be held to the bottom of the water by stones, and fastefied to a stake or post on the bank. When kept in place in this way they can be easily drawn out of the water, if it becomes necessary to do so. These artificial spawning beds will be, serviceable in those streams and water areas which are so clear as to be devoid of any nat ural spawning beds. For the salmonids, which spawn on a, gravelly bottom, and whose ova remain free, artificial spawning places are very simple and readily prepared. It is only requi site to cover in certain places the beds of rather shallow and rapid streams, near the bank or the bottom of rivulets, with a thick layer of gravel or pebbles, and to prepare slight excavations or furrows, like those made by the salmon or trout, to deposit their eggs in. M. Millet also recom mends that small heaps of pebbles should be raised at the edges of these furrows. By means of these contrivances, trout especially would often be attracted, and be content to stop and spawn in places which they would not otherwise frequent, and where it would be convenient to keep them. Natural spawning and fecundation, on artificial beds, supplemented with the artificial care of fish, has been practiced at Meredith village, N.
for nearly fifteen years. It< the illustrations as, given, further on, are shown the hatching house, nursery, and pond; and another lower pond and fish-way. These ponds and hatchery are described as follows : The location is pecu liar. A marshy area of three or four acres is nearly surrounded by an ampitheatre of high hills, from base of which issue numerous springs of clear, cold water, which varies little in temperature during the year, and less, per haps, in quality of water discharged in different seasons. These springs, uniting, form a brook
of 'sufficient volume to support naturally a goodly number of the finny inhabitants, and a decided reputation as a trout strewn, 'though it is little more than half a mile from its hundred heads to its single mouth, where it embouches into the Nashua. A dam, three or four feet in height, brought more than four hundred miles. While the eggs were being placed in the hatching-boxes the full grown in the pond above were seeking suitable spawning beds in shoal water in which they deposited their eggs, which were duly fertilized and left to hatch naturally. Early in the'season large numbers were observed just from the egg, brisk and vigorous, the yolk sac unabsorbed, and growing to two 'or three inches in length by the following August. The older trout, fed two or three times week with fresh liver, appeared to hate doubled, in weight during year. The experiment warranted larger resources, and in 1868 a more spacious house was built, capable of hatching 100,000 in a single season. Small tanks or ponds adjacent;, to the hatching-house are excavated -for rearihr the small 'fry, or for keeping the spawners ripening, by digging =away a foot or two of bog earth at the base of the hills, exposing a bed of was thrown across the ravine, and a .pond of an acre and a half obtained, five or six feet deep at points of least elevation, but quite shallow in a large portion of its area, and interspersed with growing trees, and shrubs, and ferns, and other 'forms of vegetation. So equable is the tempera ture of the water that there is noted a difference of only 8'; 50° being 'the record in summer, and 42° in winter. In this pond were placed 500 'rout; a hatching-house was erected just below, and 10,000 eggs were procured from Seth Green, and ilaced in the hatching-boxes for the first experiment, in November, 1867. The water, before entering the boxes, was filtered through 144E flannel strainers, (which were washed nearly every day) and every foreign substance, and every decaying egg was' removed. The result was successful beyond the expectation of the amateur In March, 9,000 small fry appeared, or ninety per cent., from ova fine, gray sand, in which living springs bubble, up, continually filling the excavation with clear, cold water. The dam has been raised to a height of five or six feet, thus the area of the pond to three or four acres. Another pond beloW is also filled with trout„,and the capacity is said to be now some hundred's of thousands of Brook Trout (Sams fontinalls), see cut, trout. Near Elgin, are extensive pri vate fish hatcheries, especially adapted to brook trout, cool, natural springs gushing in abundance ' from the hillsides, form the ponds, and of which enterprising citizens have availed themselves. Geneva 'Lake, Wis., large quantitiei of fish are propagated, and now, in almost every State, the propagation, exchange, or the purchase, of fish eggs is more or less extensively carriedlOn, so that the artificial hatching of fish and atlaniAng of waters, is how a large business, being prose cuted not only by private individuals, but many of the States by officers or agents, paid by the legislature, under the name of fish commis sioners. The legislatures of all the New Eng land and Middle States, more than ten years ago, passed stringent 'laws for the prdtection 'of fish, and fisheries: have voted liberal appropriations for buildings for hatching the fish, and have appointed commissioners manage this new industry. Since that time, many of, the Western States have followed their example. In the West, salmon, salmon trout, white fish and brook trout, are the species generally experi mented with, and these, except white fish, and with the addition of shad and some other sea fish, are those usually hatched in 'the East.