r; pour this into a deep dish or bowl, large enough to hold
the largest of your female Trouts; take one of these and put it
into the water so prepared, and gently squeeze the roe from it
whilst the vent is immersed in the water. [7] Do this as quickly as
possible, and return the fish into fresh water, and then pour off
the water containing the impregnated roe, through a strainer,
carefully preserving it for the remaining fish, and immediately
return the roe into fresh spring or brook water. Repeat the
operation for every female Trout, and you will then have a
quantity of impregnated roe, which if properly managed will hatch
with great certainty. Have ready as many boxes as you are able to
stock with spawn (three feet long, two feet broad, and six inches
deep). Fill them to the depth of two inches of river sand, which
ought to be previously so well washed that there is not a particle
of mud left in it, and upon that put two inches of river gravel,
also exceedingly well washed, the pebbles varying in size from a
hazel nut to a pigeon or pullet's egg. These boxes must be so
placed that the water from a spring will flow into the first, and
from the surface of that into the second, and below the whole nest
of boxes there ought to be a small reservoir made--say three yards
by two and eighteen inches deep, and well gravelled at the bottom.
All these matters having been previously arranged, and the water
flowing nicely over the gravel, sprinkle the impregnated roe
equally over the surface of the gravel, say a quarter of a pint to
each box, and it will roll down into the interstices of the gravel
and find a bed in which it will remain snugly until the spring,
when, about March, if all has been properly managed, you will
find, on a careful examination, that the young Trout are coming to
life by hundreds. I am very particular in recommending spring
rather than brook water, for several reasons. In the first place,
brooks are liable to be flooded, and are sometimes so overcharged
with sand and mud that the gravel in the spawning-boxes is
completely choked with it and the spawn is lost, as I know to my
great and frequent disappointments. At other times all is washed
away together. In the second place, the gravel of brooks swarms
with water-lice (shrimps) and the larvae of aquatic insects, as
well as bull-heads and loaches, all of which prey upon the spawn
of the Trout and Salmon. In the third place, if you put your
spawning-boxes in