REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. IX 



Putin-Bay Station, on Lake Erie, 221,062,500 eggs being collected. It 

 was also designed to take up this work on Lake Ontario, where formerly 

 there was a comparatively large catch, but after careful investigation 

 it was found that but few spawning fish were found on fishing-grounds 

 that a few years ago yielded tons of fish. This disappearance from their 

 usual spawning-grounds was attributed by some to the discharge of 

 refuse from mills and Victories into the tributaries of Lake Ontario. 

 30,000,000 of the eggs collected at Put-in Bay were Transferred to the 

 Lake Ontario station, and the fry resulting from them were ])lauted in 

 the St. Lawrence. 



The passage of laws by the State of Michigan prohibiting the capture 

 of whitefish and lake trout in Lakes Huron and Michigan from Novem- 

 ber 1 to December 15, unfortunately caused the abandonment of white- 

 fish work on these lakes. Efforts were made to collect eggs at Duluth, 

 but very few were secured. 



At Putin Bay, Lake Erie, notwithstanding the unfavorable weather 

 that prevailed during the fall, 112,842,000 whitefish and 27,786,000 cisco 

 or lake-herring eggs were collected from fish taken by the commercial 

 fishermen ; 10,000,000 of these were sent to Alpena, Mich., to be hatched 

 and liberated in Lake Huron. 



Further experiments were conducted on Lake Erie to determine the 

 practicability of holding in pens the adult whitefish taken prior to the 

 spawning season; 1,200 fish were secured from the fishermen in the 

 vicinity of Put-in Bay and impounded in floating live-boxes, and over 

 10,000,000 eggs were thus secured. The results of the experiment, 

 though not as large as anticipated, are encouraging, and will probably 

 lead to a considerable extension of whitefish proi^agation in Lake Erie, 

 as in this way a definite supply of spawners can be depended on. 

 Stormy weather has in the past often prevented the taking of sufficient 

 numbers of fish during the spawning season. In conducting this 

 experimental work great assistance was rendered by the fishermen, 

 who allowed the Commission to take fish from their pound nets without 

 charge and hold them in live-boxes until after the spawning season, 

 when they were returned to the fishermen. 



The lake-trout work at Northville and Alj)ena stations iu Michigan 

 was larger than heretofore, notwithstanding that the passage of the 

 act previously referred to cut short the collecting season materially and 

 few eggs could be obtained from grounds that had in the past yielded 

 large numbers. There is little doubt that under ordinary conditions 

 the collections for Northville, which reached 12,000,000, would have 

 doubled that amount. 



The propagation of marine species, such as cod, flatfish, i)ollock, and 

 lobsters, was the object of attention on the Atlantic Coast, at the Woods 

 Hole and Gloucester stations. Profiting by the preliminary investiga- 

 tion made during the previous year, large numbers of cod eggs were 

 obtained at Plymouth, which, with those taken from the brood-fish held 

 at Woods Hole, made an aggregate of 153,436,000 eggs, which yielded 



