DISCUSSION. 
Prof. Epwarp E. Prince. I do not wish to usurp the time of the congress unduly, 
but I will say a word or two about the opinions expressed in the two or three papers this 
morning on the question of whitefish production in the Great Lakes. It is a matter 
which is of very, very great importance to us in Canada—in fact, I may say I am chair- 
man of a commission appointed by the Dominion government which has the protection 
of the whitefish, especially of Lakes Huron and Erie, before it. I give the writers of the 
papers this morning credit for wishing to do something practical in the matter of pre- 
serving the whitefish. I give them credit for that. At the same time I, as Canadian 
commissioner of fisheries and having a good deal to do with administration of fishery 
laws, see difficulties in the suggestions which were made in the papers this morning, and 
especially I see this difficulty, that the prohibition of the capture of small whitefish, 
so long as pound nets or fish traps are allowed, is almost an impossibility—that is to say, 
the prevention of their destruction. You may try as you will to prevent the taking of 
small whitefish, but they will be taken. You may prohibit their sale, but they will be 
handled and in some way disposed of. Therefore the question comes to this: If you 
adopt a policy which will be extremely difficult or impossible to carry out, it is better 
to pause before adopting that policy. If you adopt a closed season—and we in Canada, 
have always favored closed seasons, and have to some extent carried them out (I say that, 
in justice to our official staff with which I am connected, we have tried to carry out the 
closed season in Canada)—if you adopt a closed season, which prevents any nets whatever 
being used and removes all nets from the water, that is an effective measure. You can 
do that. You can protect the fish by preventing the capture altogether—that is, by 
taking the nets out of the water for, say, the month of November. 
I know that Mr. Clark and others will claim that hatcheries will make up for every- 
thing in the way of destruction of fish by nets if you also preserve the immature fish; 
and one of the strong points in favor of artificial hatching of fish (instead of allowing 
parent fish during a closed season to spawn) is that great loss arises from nonfertilization 
of eggs. I think that is a point which is open to discussion, and I will give you an 
illustration, and then I shall sit down. Sometime ago I was engaged in hatching sea 
fish, and I hatched about 70 different species; and I tried on more than one occasion 
to keep some eggs in the laboratory tanks free from fertilization. The sperms which 
the male shed in the open sea would reach those eggs through the supply pipes 
wherever they were placed. In other words, it was almost impossible to keep them 
unfertilized after they were taken from the ripe female. I investigated the same thing 
in sockeye salmon in British Columbia. I tried on the spawning beds to get eggs which 
were not fertilized. I went into the water knee-deep to get them and groped about on 
the spawning beds there, where the fish were engaged in spawning; and I tell you, 
gentlemen, I have gathered quantities of natural fish spawn on the beds, and I failed, in 
some thousands of eggs, to get one single egg that was not fertilized, which showed how 
scrupulously nature accomplishes the fertilization of eggs under natural conditions. 
At the same time, I do not deny that eggs may escape impregnation, yet, so far as my 
observations go, the eggs which were deposited by the parent fish are almost to an egg 
fertilized. 
I do not wish to say more, Mr. President, but merely these few words. 
The PRESIDENT. The next gentleman. 
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