or three days old, and during the segmentation period, until the embryo fish is fully developed and the eye is visible in the egg, after which they are not so sensitive, or liable to injury, and can be moved from place to place, stirred with a feather, or taken out of the water, and when properly packed with moss and ice shipped long distances.

In water at a temperature of forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the eggs of eastern brook trout require sixty-three days to hatch, while those of the rainbow trout require forty-two days. But the period of incubation is dependent upon the temperature of the water. Eggs in colder water require a longer time to hatch; in warmer water they hatch in shorter time. While the eggs are hatching it is good policy to shift the position of the trays every day or two, and keep them free of refuse matter, dead fry, or egg shells, which latter accumulate in the lower end of the trough and may clog the foot screen. Unless the eggs are unusually large, as sometimes is the case with eggs from large rainbow or steelhead trout, 100,000 fry can be hatched in a trough, but great care is required to prevent their smothering. To avoid this the fry are placed in baskets such as I have previously described, or if baskets are not used, two or more three-fourths inch boards placed two or three feet apart are snugly fitted crosswise in the trough and securely wedged in place. These extend above the surface of the water and to within one-half inch of the bottom of the trough. This compels a comparatively swift current through the half-inch space and prevents the fry crowding to the head of the trough, or into the corners. Keeping them spread out or scattered over a larger area avoids the danger of smothering.

The fry have little control over their motive powers and will not leave the bottom of the trough until the oroplasm, or yolk sac is absorbed, which will be several weeks or a month after they are hatched. Their fins are then developed and they will rise from the bottom and assume a natural position in the water, all swimming against the current. They are now ready to take food. Twenty-five thousand fry can be maintained in a twelve foot trough at this time, if necessary, though better results will follow if the fish are not kept so crowded. When they have been feeding

a few weeks fifteen thousand is as many as should be carried in a trough, and this number must be reduced to half as many after they have reached a length of two inches.

At first it is well to feed the fry every hour, giving them only a very small quantity, until they have become accustomed to accepting it. Successful feeding of trout fry requires considerable patience on the part of the attendant, and a knowledge acquired only through actual experience and close observation. Fresh beef liver is the food commonly used. It is ground through a meat grinder until it is reduced to particles about the size of the grains of granulated sugar. As the fry grow larger the food is given them in coarser particles. It is mixed with water to a thick emulsion, about the consistency of cream. Then the point of a feather is dipped into it and passed over the surface of the water. At first the fry will take their food only while it is in suspension, or floating in the water, later they will pick it from the bottom of the trough and they can then be fed an increasing amount four times daily. After the young fish are two or three inches long, two or three feeds a day will do.

Trout fry are ready to be planted at any time after the yolk sac has been absorbed. Having begun feeding in the hatchery they have attained a sufficient development to enable them to search for and find natural food in the streams. They should, of course, be planted when the waters to be stocked are in a favorable condition to receive them and offer the best chance for their existence and maintenance.

The fish culturist who is stocking public waters, and who practices real conservation, is not content to publish stupendous figures of the fishes he claims to have produced each year. He is aware that the final results of his work are dependent largely on his knowledge of the habits and requirements of the fishes being propagated, and of the waters in which they are being placed and the judgment he uses in planting them. He endeavors to exclude fishes that will prove detrimental or useless to avoid, as far as possible, associating antagonistic species and to place in any given water the species of fish best adapted to it and most valuable under all circumstances.

The Rivers of Indiana.

BY THE COMMISSIONER.

When we were boys and girls our school geographies taught us that the drainage of Indiana is from the northeast to the southwest. While this is nearly correct it is not exactly so. To the north of us is what geologists term the Lake Michigan basin, that extends over into Indiana, from about the middle of the State eastward, down to about the middle of Kosciusko County, and, along the east State line, far enough to include all of Allen County. The drainage of this territory is north, through the Maumee River into Lake Erie, and through the St. Joseph into Lake Michigan..

But there was a time in the history of the world when the statement would have been absolutely correct. When the glaciers had melted and receded from Indiana, but still covered the Lake Michigan basin to the north, the St. Joseph River flowed southwest, from the point where South Bend is now situated, and joined the Kankakee, and these two rivers were one continuous stream. There is a well defined channel from South Bend down to the Kankakee that proves the truth of this, though the bottom of it is good farm land. One imagining the waters of the St. Joseph flowing down this old bed and spreading out over the flat lands along the Kankakee can see a great river miles and miles wide, making of the northwest part of the State a vast shallow lake.

And if you will observe the low, flat lands lying along the Fort Wayne and Northern Indiana Interurban and the Wabash Railroad, between Huntington and Fort Wayne, that have only within the last few years been drained sufficiently to make meadows and corn lands of them, you will see that here, too, is an old river bed. And while the great ice sheets were impeding the flow of water to the north, the Maumee flowed southwest down this valley and was continuous with the Wabash.