REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. xliii 



such an inclosure is usually permanent, but for salmon it is generally 

 temporary. This treatment is also adopted with the white-fish which 

 are taken in the Detroit River in the fall of the year, while running up to 

 spawn from the deep water of the lake, placed in inclosures for mar- 

 keting purposes, and kept there for sale, from time to time, during the 

 winter. Indirectly, under these circumstances, they furnish the oppor- 

 tunity for artificial impregnation and hatching on a very large scale. 



The simplest mode of obtaining salmon for the purpose in question 

 is that adopted by Mr. Samuel Wilmot, at New Castle, Ontario. This 

 gentleman, observing a few years ago that a few salmon were in the 

 habit of coming up a small stream to a favorite spawning-ground, con- 

 ceived the idea of penning them up so as to control them during the 

 period of reproduction. He accordingly built a house over a basin in 

 which they collected, or adjacent to the spawning-ground, and erected a 

 dam below it, so that after they had passed above a gate could be 

 dropped and the fish imprisoned. In this way he has been able to 

 secure a large number of salmon, and with them has carried out, for 

 the most part, his labors in connection with salmon-hatching. 



A more feasible method, and one which can be conducted out on a 

 much larger and more efficient scale, is that now practiced by Mr. Charles 

 G. Atkins at Bucksport. This consists in securing the living salmon by 

 any means at his command, the most ready being their purchase at 

 the salmon-weirs at the mouth of the Penobscot River, where they are 

 taken in considerable numbers and kept alive for any length of time- 

 These are brought in suitable floating cars to Bucksport, transported 

 on trucks to the hatching-establishment, and placed in a pond of about 

 one hundred and fifty acres, where they find ample room for their move- 

 ments. 



The various methods of effecting the impregnation of the eggs has 

 been already referred to, and the subject is treated of in detail by Mr. 

 Milner in the appendix. 



As already explained, it is not necessary to provide the breeding sal- 

 mon with food, since they do not take it during the spawning-season ; 

 and they exist for the several months necessary to retain them with 

 comparatively little mortality. Mr. Atkins's experiment was initiated 

 in 1871. In 1872 he had nearly six hundred fish by the 1st of July, 

 of which very few were lost. In the months of October and November 

 he took from these fish 1,500,000 eggs, very few of the fish being injured 

 in the process. They were then placed in the water and permitted to 

 return to the sea, the precaution being taken to affix a metallic tag corre- 

 sponding to the number, weight, and sex of the fish, and the date as 

 recorded, so that if recaptured at any time some idea might be gained 

 of their rate of growth, movements, and migrations.* 



The eggs thus obtained, whether of salmon or of trout, are hatched 



* For a fall account of Mr. Atkins's experiment, see his report, p. 226 of the present vol- 

 ume. 



