the plan having been sanctioned and the expense
provided for by the proprietors of the river. The
initiatory process was entrusted to Mr.
Ramsbottom, of Clitheroe. This gentleman is an
expert in the art, and before the trial at
Stormontfield, had practised it for some time,
very successfully, at the salmon fisheries of
Oughterard, in Galway. The pond having been
properly constructed and an equable supply of
filtered water provided from a mill-race which
runs parallel to the river, the breeding-boxes
were laid down in rows, carefully filled with
gravel, and of capacity to contain three
hundred thousand eggs. The "redds" having been
searched and a few female fish, with the roe
perfectly ripened, having been caught, they were
gently pressed until the eggs fell into a tub of clean
river water. Having been rinsed so as to cleanse
them, fresh water was added, and the milt poured
over them direct from the male salmon. In a
brief moment the mysterious vivifying principle
was seen to change the aspect of the roe, which
was then sown upon the gravel of the breeding-
boxes, the parent fish being returned to the
river unharmed, but carefully marked: by which
means it is known that the same fish has been
twice taken for the same purpose. A great
many females are required in order to obtain
the necessary number of eggs; but the milt of
two or three males is sufficient to spawn the
whole of the ova. It has been determined by
these experiments that the male salmon in the
river are more plentiful than the females: the
proportion, according to Peter Marshall, being
three to one.

After being deposited, the eggs were carefully
watched all the winter by their faithful guardian,
and it at once became apparent that the first
year's experiment would be a highly successful
one, for the eggs remained in a healthy condition,
and advanced favourably towards the ripening
point. The progress of the first hatching in the
pond was keenly watched from day to day, and
the various changes of the eggs noted down, so
that the gradual transformation of the roe into
a fish took place before the eyes of those
interested.

Immediately on the contact of the two bodies
of roe and milt, instantaneous change takes
place in the colour of the eggs—it brightens and
becomes florid, having previously been dull and
opaque. About the twentieth day, a bright spot
is seen in the shell, which continues to increase
in brilliancy for about a month. On the forty-
eighth day, the future salmon may be distinctly
traced in the shape of a tiny thread. In other
fifteen days the eyes will be observed—two bright
black spots. The daily progress of the fish is
now marked, and it can be seen to increase
from day to day. On the ninetieth day the
head is apparent. When a hundred days have
passed, the shape of the fish begins to be
distinguished. The tiny animal now becomes
restive, and the yolk is seen drawn up into a
bag of conical shape firmly attached to the fish.
The restlessness of the fry soon leads to the
breaking of the fragile prison, the efforts of the
coiled-up animal to straighten itself causes the
shell to burst, and lo! a fish!

The time which the egg requires to ripen
and become salmon has been definitively settled
by these experiments. The first egg of the
first season's hatching was observed to burst
on the 31st of March, and from that date to the
end of May the remainder of the eggs rapidly
came to life. It appears from the pond experiments,
that from one hundred and ten to one
hundred and twenty days are required for the
coming to life of the eggs; but, in places affording
better shelter, the roe has been known to
ripen in half that period. No person has ever
known it to be hatched in so short a space as
forty-eight hours, although a denizen of Billingsgate
stated two days and two nights as the time
required by nature for that important process.
According to the data of this authority, a salmon
might be born, and might be eaten, a
prime fish of five or six pounds weight, within
a year.

The young fry as they come to life flounder
about in the breeding boxes with unwieldy bags
of yolk attached; but they are speedily carried
by the strength of the current which flows over
the boxes into the little canal, which ultimately
conducts them into a reception pond, where they
are fed on boiled liver till they are ready for their
migration seaward.

It is well known that fishes are the most
fecund of all the inhabitants of the animal
kingdom. Herring, cod, and flounders, yield
their eggs by tens of thousands. The female
salmon yields a thousand eggs for every pound
she weighs; and were the whole of them to
arrive at maturity, there would be no scarcity
of this fine fish, though the demand were
treble what it now is. But the enormous
fecundity of fishes is in a manner neutralised
by the waste incidental to their habits of life.
The eggs are left to perish or ripen as the
state ot the weather may determine. They
may be carried away and wasted by some sudden
winter flood; they may be gobbled up by the
water-fowl (as Thames salmon spawn is devoured
by Thames swans); or be preyed upon by the
pike and the trout; or the shallow in which
they have been laid, may dry up and the eggs
be withered by the sun. The infant fish
are killed by thousands, both from accident
and design; and few of the myriads of
salmon eggs that are laid in the stream, ever
come to life. Of the fish which are hatched, it
would be a liberal calculation to allow that ten
in every hundred come to table as full grown
salmon.

The anomaly of growth which admits of one-
half of the number of salmon hatched in any
given year assuming the smolt dress and
departing for the sea, while the other moiety
remain as parr a year longer, still continues to
puzzle our naturalists. The dates of a particular
hatching will illustrate this striking feature
of natural history. The last batch of eggs
manipulated at Stormontfield was placed in
the boxes at the end of 1859. They came to