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s is very likely to cause them severe injury. The box should be gradually tilted over and lifted out of the water bottom first, so that the fish are hardly disturbed at all and certainly not injured in any way.
An important matter to consider before turning the little fish out into the pond is, how the ponds are to be protected so that their many enemies may be kept away from the fry. Kingfishers, herons, and other creatures are very partial to young trout and will cause enormous destruction if not prevented. Kingfishers have, in my experience, been the worst offenders. Some years ago I was rearing some trout in a part of the country where many of the inhabitants bewailed the extermination of the kingfisher. Before I began rearing trout I agreed with these people, for a kingfisher flitting along a stream looking like a little mass of jewels is a pleasing sight, and one which I had never enjoyed in that particular part of the country.
When the time came to set my little fish free in the rearing ponds, as a matter of principle I covered the ponds with herring-net, closely pegged down on the banks so that I could not even get my hand under the edge. I did not think that there were any kingfishers or herons about, and so was very surprised when one morning, on going down to feed the fish, I found a kingfisher under the net, flying up and down the pond trying to get out. By carefully introducing a landing-net under the netting over the pond, I was able to catch the intruder, and caught four more in the same way in about three weeks. Since that time I have not agreed with the people who have stated that the kingfisher is almost extinct, at least in that part of the country. I may say that there are but few streams there, and that it is not at all an apparently likely place for kingfishers. I am quite sure that wherever any one begins to rear fish there he will find that kingfishers are fairly common. The amateur will probably be also surprised at the way herons appear, if he conducts his fish-rearing oper