The date when the first of the eggs deposited was observed to be hatched was on the 31st of March, a period of more than four months after the stocking of the boxes; and during April and May most of the eggs had started into life, and the fry were observed waddling about the breeding-boxes, and were in June promoted to a place in the reception-pond, being then tiny fish a little more than an inch long. Sir William Jardine, who has taken a warm interest in the Stormontfield operations, thought that the first year’s experiments were remarkably successful in showing the practicability of hatching, rearing, and maintaining in health, a very large number of young fish, at a comparatively trifling cost. The artificial breeding of salmon is still carried on at these ponds, and with very great success, when their limited extent is taken into account. They have sensibly increased the stock of fish in the Tay, and also, as I will by and by relate, under the separate head of “The Salmon,” contributed greatly to the solution of the various mysteries connected with the growth of that fish. The fish, it is remarkable, suffer no deterioration of any kind by being bred in the ponds, and can compare in every respect with those bred in the river. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR A SERIES OF SALMON-BREEDING PONDS. Source of supply at top. Breeding-boxes next. Parr-pond after. Smolt-pond to the right. Adult salmon pond to the left. River at foot of plan. Ornamental walks. Clumps of trees, etc., according to taste. ] The plan of the ponds at Stormontfield, as originally constructed, will be a better guide to persons desiring information than any written description. The engraving, with the double pond, shows a design of my own, founded on the Stormontfield suite it contains a separate pond for the detention, for a time, of such large fish as may be taken with their spawn not fully matured. Cottages for the superintendent of the ponds and his assistants are also shown in the plan. The ponds at Stormontfield were originally designed with a view to breed 300,000 fish per annum, but after a trial of two years it was found, from a speciality in the natural history of the salmon elsewhere alluded to, that only half that number of fish could be bred in each year. Hence the necessity for the recently-constructed smolt-pond, which will now admit of a hatching at Stormontfield of at least 350,000 eggs every year. An additional reason for the construction of the new pond was the fact of the old one being too small in proportion to the breeding-boxes. Its dimensions were 223 feet by 112 feet at its longest and broadest parts. The new pond is nearly an acre in extent, and is well adapted for the reception of the young fish.