164 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
having them upset and the contents spilled out, or else greatly injured 
by the action of the waves, experiments made in this direction nearly — 
always resulting disduisoucly. 
Much more wholesale and efficient methods of accomplishing this — 
important object are, however, at our command, as suggested by the suc- 
cess of experiments prosecuted during the spring of 187 7 at Havre de 
Grace in hatching eggs of shad on a large scale, in connection with 
the operations of the U. S. Fish Commission and of the Maryland com- 
mission, Mr. T. B. Ferguson, the efficient and accomplished Maryland — 
commissioner of fisheries, has devised a method by which the hatch- 
ing of shad can be prosecuted in tidal waters and by which not only a 
great number of eggs can be hatched in a very small space, but also 
the danger of losing the eggs in consequence of the upsetting of the 
hatching boxes in stormy weather can be prevented. This device con- 
sists in a series of buckets, with wire-gauze bottoms, which are alter- 
nately depressed and raised by means of anaxis rotated by steam-power. 
The buckets dip into the water, the eggs floating in them, and the gen- 
tle motion of elevation and depression through the space of five or ten 
inches, the extent and rapidity of which can be varied at pleasure, gives 
the eggs that agitation and the continual contact with a new supply of 
water necessary to their proper condition. Nine million eggs were thus 
hatched with a much less expenditure of labor than heretofore; and 
instead of some hundreds of floating boxes being called into play, six 
to twelve buckets, worked along the edge of a floating scow, answered 
all the purpose. 
Still other methods can be used, possibly in some cases to even greater 
advantage, namely, the placing of the eggs in funnel-shaped vessels, 
with a stream of salt water pumped up through the bottom, giving the 
eggs a constant agitation. A wire-gauze screen prevents the eggs from 
dropping into the mouth of the funnel, ‘and the constant overflow of 
the water carries off all the dead offal matter. It would, of course, re- 
quire a considerable expenditure to start such an establishment. <A 
small engine, of four or five horse-power, with the necessary accompan- 
iments, however, would probably be large enough. With such an appa-— 
ratus in connection with some of the great fisheries, like those in Secon- 
net River at Rhode Island, orat Menemsha Bight on Martha’s Vineyard, 
results of incalculable value might and probably would in time be ob-— 
tained. Instead of counting the yield of the fisheries by the hundreds of — 
thousands, millions could be estimated for, and it would not be difficult 
to guarantee the propagation of one hundred millions of young fish as 
the result of asingle season’s work. These, when the yolk-bag was ab- 
sorbed, could be scattered or sown along the coast in different localities 
so as fo increase the opportunity of finding suitable food and of escap- 
ing the ravages of their enemies. 
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