necessary for the present purpose.

It should be

made of ample length so as to be very 'baggy' when in use; leads should be fixed along the bottom, and corks along the top. For the yearling ponds, which are narrower than those containing the older fish, a drag-net of special design called a pole-net is found very convenient. Instead of being drawn by ropes this net is stretched on two side-poles of considerable length. By this means the bottom corners of the net are kept down, as it follows the poles which are pushed along the sides of the pond. If the water is frozen the net must be drawn under the ice, a passage being cut for the side poles or ropes along both sides of the pond.

In removing the fish from the net, great care is required to prevent them from being injured. They should on no account be touched with the hand, but should be emptied out into baths, and carried at once to a preparing tank or box through which a good supply of water is kept running. Here they remain in durance vile, without any food for two or three days in the case of yearlings, and for a longer term in the case of two-year-olds. In either case the length of the preparation required depends, to some extent, on the distance to be travelled, and the temperature of the water.

After these days of total abstinence and confinement the fish will be in prime condition for travelling, and you will thus avoid the necessity of changing the water during the journey, a change which has so often proved fatal.

Yearlings and two-year-olds, unlike the fry, travel best in frosty weather. When on the point of departure the fish are transferred to the large specially made zinc carriers which appear in the illustration. Fish-carriers are constructed according to various patterns, many of them very ingenious, and some of them very fanciful in design. The principle of them all is to make the shaking and vibration of the vehicle do the work of aëration. The water is allowed to splash about in such a way that enough fresh oxygen is taken in from the air to compensate for the oxygen taken out of the water by the fish's gills.

Ice has been used for travelling fish in warm weather, but I do not recommend it. The objection is that when, at the end of their journey, the fish are suddenly turned out into water of higher temperature, there is some danger of inflammation of the gills resulting.

A very serviceable fish-carrier, for want of anything better, is to be found in one of those large,

glass wicker-clad bottles which are used for conveying commercial sulphuric acid, and are known as carboys. The bottle should not be more than three parts full, otherwise the process of automatic aëration, so to speak, would cease, and the fish would be suffocated. The risks involved in allowing the water to be changed en route are great. The character of the new water is often unsuitable, and a sudden alteration in temperature is calculated to bring on gill fever. In the case of a large consignment going a considerable distance, where there are several changes of trains, a competent attendant should accompany the fish for the whole, or at least a part, of the way to make assurance doubly sure. In the early days of fish culture the tobaccoless attendant was fondly supposed to aërate the water with great vigour and little intermission by plying a pair of bellows during the whole of a long railway journey.

No sooner are the carriers filled than they are hoisted on a cart standing in readiness to convey them to the railway station. The cart is timed to reach the station a few minutes before the departure of the train by which the fish are to travel. Careful arrangements have of course been made with the consignee by which the fish are to be met at the end of their railway journey, and conveyed from the