24 



ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF PACIFIC SALMONS. 



tion is fastened on. The packing is then resinned as before until the 

 case is filled, when the cover is screwed on, and the eggs are read}^ to 

 be transported. 



For shipping eyed salmon eggs to various points in the United 

 States Avhat is known as the Atkins-Dinsmore case has been quite 

 generally substituted for the old tray-shipment method described on 

 page 84: of the Ap])endix to the Annual Report of the U. S. Com- 

 missioner of Fisheries for 1897. Eggs can be transported in the 

 Atkins-Dinsmore case as soon as the eye spot is plainly visible and up 

 to within a few weeks of hatching. When shipped at too late a period 

 of development, however, the eggs will hatch en route and the em- 

 bryos perish. 



This nu41i0(l of packing eggs * * * has tlie spec-ial advantage of maliing 

 a comparatively light paclvage — a factor of great economic imiiovtance in trans- 

 portation. The outside case may l)e an ordinary box of suitable dimensions. 



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Fig. 7.— Atkins-Dinsmorp shipping caso. I'laii. 



In it are packed, surrounded by moss, several boxes made of three-eighths-inch 

 boards, and usually VI inches wide by 15 inches long by .S^ inches deep, each 

 box containing a mass of 10,000 to 20,000 eggs in mosquito netting, with moss 

 around all sides. No ice is used, care being taken that the packing be done 

 in a temperature below 50°, that all packing material be kept in a place 

 slightly 1k'1o\\- freezing point, and thiU the moss in which the eggs are packed 

 be sprinkled with snow. This method of packing is an economical one for 

 shipments of eggs of Salmoindre dui'ing cold weather, but can not advanta- 

 geously be used for eggs of spring-spawning lishes imless there is available a 

 cold-storage room in which to do the packing. Recently the superintendent of 

 the Bakei- Lake (\\'asli.) station, who has had occasion to ship eggs of steel- 

 head tntut and Pacific .salmon in warm weather, has packed them in light 

 cases with alternate layers of moss, and then placed two tiers of these thin, 

 cases side by side in an outer case with a large hopper of ice over the whole, 

 the drip i)assing down between the two tiers of inner cases. The chief ad- 

 vantage of this case for long-distance shipments is in the fact that less ice 

 is required than in other forms of cases using ice, with a consequent saving 

 in transportation charges. It can also be \ised in warm as well as cold weather." 



Titcomb, John W. Loc. cit, pp. 743. 



