FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 197 



for this condition of things, but it is one that can be applied only by the Fisheries, 

 Game and Forest Commission or its agents. 



Every little while it is discovered by some one that trout contain ova in the sum- 

 mer, and there is a demand that the closed season be shortened. The last complaint 

 of this sort that I have noticed was printed in a paper in the northern part of the State. 

 The writer of the complaint found ripe eggs in some trout he caught in August, and 

 he desired that the law should close the fishing on and after August i. This gentle- 

 man simply made the mistake that others have made, for the eggs were not ripe. If 

 he had examined trout in June or before he would have found spawn in the females, 

 but it would have been undeveloped ova, the same as he found in August, except that 

 the latter was further advanced. In this State brook trout spawn in October, with 

 some variations, depending upon the water, for the colder the water the earlier they 

 will spawn. 



At the Adironilack hatching station of this Commission, in Franklin County, they 

 begin to spawn about October i ; at the Caledonia station, in Livingston County, they 

 begin to spawn about October 15, and eggs are taken as late as the following March, 

 and have been taken as late as April 19; at Cold Spring Harbor station, on Long 

 Island, they begin to spawn the last of October, but the height of the season is from 

 November 10 to 30, although a few fish come on in December and as late as January. 



In running streams the temperature of the water would follow closely the temper- 

 ature of the air, and the spawning would be earl\- if the season were cold, except -in 

 streams that were largel}' spring fed, in which case the temperature of the water would 

 not fall so rapidly and the spawning would be prolonged. 



Trout spawn when they are " yearlings," but a yearling is more than twelve months 

 old. All brook trout' eggs are hatched in the spring, and the period of incubation 

 varies with the temperature of the water. The eggs taken the first of October in 

 Northern New York ma}' be 150 days hatching, while the eggs taken on Long Island 

 the last of November will be only about sixty days in hatching. Sa>- that trout are 

 hatched on Long Island in March, during the following summer they will be fry, and 

 in the fall they will be fingerlings, seven or eight months old. The next season they 

 will be yearlings, and as they spawn in the fall of the second season the\- will actually 

 be twenty months old at spawning time, although from custom they are called year- 

 lings. Consequently a }earling brook trout at spawning time is from eighteen to 

 twenty months of age, dating from the time it left the egg. A yearling trout may 

 yield from 50 to 250 eggs, the eggs being one-sixth of an inch in diameter, quite dif- 

 ferent from the mustard seed eggs which the fisherman found in the fish he caught 

 during the summer months of the open season. A trout but four inches long has been 

 known to yield forty ripe eggs. Many yearling trout in wild waters are not six inches 



