248 KEPORT OF COMMISSIONEE OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



tioagh-room sufficieut for the developmeut of several millions of eggs. 

 The building and all the fixtures were in order in season for the recep- 

 tion of the si)awu, the first of which was taken October 28. 



The preparations for taking spawn were the erection of a rough shed 

 by the side of the brook, somS 200 feet below the dam, and the construc- 

 tion of a number of pens in the brook at the same point. The pens had 

 board bottoms and sides, and the ends were of wooden gratings, through 

 which the water ])assed freely. They were to be used to confine the 

 salmon in while waiting to be manipulated and marked. A gate opened 

 from the upper pen into that portion of the brook lying between it 

 and the dam, and other gates opened from pen to pen, so that the salmon 

 could be driven from one to another. These were all of small dimen- 

 sions of course, and a dip-net only was required in taking salmon out 

 of them for manipulation. At the dam a small gate was made, nearly 

 as high as the surface of the pond, and the water that came through it 

 ran over a gently sloping floor about 12 feet long, with wide crevices in 

 it, through which the water wasted, while a salmon coming into it would 

 slide down ujitil left without water enough to swim in, when it could 

 not do otherwise than roll oif the lower end of the floor into the brook. 

 This arrangement would effectually prevent salmon returning to the 

 pond after once coming into the brook; and being uow enclosed above 

 and below, they could be driven into the pens with a small sweep-net 

 whenever wanted. After the first season a long, narrov,' sluice was built 

 leading from the dam down to the spawning-shed, and in this form the 

 premises are represented in the illustration. 



The salmon having now the range of a pond of sixty acres, which 

 would by tlie flowage of marshes be doubled in November, the task of 

 catching them again for spawning purposes was by no means so easy as it 

 would have been had they remamed within the enclosure first made, 

 which contained only about four acres of surface, and which would have 

 kept them from straying more than forty rods from the brook, into which, 

 it was hoped, they wonld voluntarily run. It was therefore thought 

 necessary to take some new measures for catching them. 



First. A hedge, obtusely funnel-formed, was placed across the narrow 

 part of the pond a few rods above the dam, each arm of it resting on 

 the shore, its apex pierced bj an opening occupying the center and point- 

 ing down toward the dam. Salmon swimming down the pond, on either 

 shore, would find one of the ends of the hedge crossing its path obliquely, 

 would follow it out to the apex, pass through the opening, and then be 

 "within an inclosure out of which there would be but two ways of egress — 



to keep tlieni up from the bottom of the trough, so that there might be a current of 

 water uuderneath, as well as above ^hem. The troughs were not furnished, with covers? 

 reliance being placed on curtains at the windows for protection against an excess of 

 liglit. 



After the close of the season the position of the troughs was changed; they were cut 

 into shorter pieces, placed across the building, and fed from a long trough that trav- 

 ersed the room lengthwise. This is the arrangement represented in the plan. 



