2 8 AMERICAN FISHES. 



Jersey the spawning time appears to be in May; in New Brunswick in 

 June. Dr. Blanding, many years ago, estimated the number of eggs at 

 2,248,000. Seth Green puts the figures at 500,000. 



The experiments of Major Ferguson on Albemarle Sound, in May, 1879, 

 resulted in the artificial fecundation and hatching of many thousands of 

 the eggs. These were smaller than shad eggs, but after fecundation they in- 

 creased considerably in size, and assumed a light green color. They 

 hatched in about twenty-four hours. About 400,000 young fish were libe- 

 rated in Salmon Creek. Mr. Holton made similar experiments at Weldon, 

 N. C, in May, 1873. He observed that the eggs did not come to maturity 

 until the fourth or fifth day. This difference in the time of hatching was 

 possibly due to the cooler temperature of the Avater in the Roanoke river. 



In the North Carolina waters they spawn in early May; in the Potomac 

 also in May. Dr. C. C. Abbott for five successive years found in the Dela- 

 ware River young an inch long in the second week of June. Professor 

 Leith Adams observed bass spawning in the St. Johns River, N. B. about 

 the middle of June. 



Their rate of growth is not certainly known. Dr. Abbott's inch-long 

 fry of June measured four and one-half inches by the middle of October. 

 Great quantities of young fish, from five to nine inches long, are taken in 

 the PotCmac in February and March. I believe them to be the young of 

 the previous year. 



Capt. Gavitt, of Westerly, Rhode Island, has caught Bass in June that 

 weighed from one-half to one pound, put them into a pond and taken them 

 out in the following October, when they weighed six pounds. The aver- 

 age size of this fish probably does not exceed twenty pounds. In the Poto- 

 mac, Hudson, and Connecticut rivers the largest seldom exceed thirty or 

 forty pounds, though in the Potomac fifty-pound fish are not unusual. The 

 Fish Commission has for several years had a standing offer of a reward 

 for a sixty-pound fish from the Potomac, but none has been forthcoming 

 as yet. Dr. Henshall states that he once saw a Striped Bass weighed in 

 the Baltimore fish market, which went several pounds over one hundred. 

 In i860 one was taken at Cuttyhunk, which weighed 104 pounds. The 

 largest on record was one weighing one hundred and twelve pounds, taken 

 at Orleans, Massachusetts, in the Town Cove. Such a fish must have 

 measured at least six feet in length. A fairly proportioned Bass thirty-six 

 inches long should weigh at least eighteen pounds. 



