WALL-EYED PIKE.^ 



By JAMES NEVIN, of Wisconsin. 



Some 190,000,000 wall-eyed pike eggs were collected this year 

 during the spawning season. The pike eggs are the most delicate 

 eggs with which we have to deal. It is seldom that the fish cul- 

 turist succeeds in impregnating more than 50 per cent, of the 

 eggs he' takes. 



We were very successful this year in securing male fish with 

 which to impregnate the eggs, and with our improved methods of 

 caring for the eggs during the time of taking them, we ought to 

 have had 100,000,000 fry to distribute. The eggs cleaned up in 

 the very best form. After they had been in the jars some thirty 

 days, and the embryo was well advanced, they began to die in 

 the hatching jars, and have died ofif in such large numbers that 

 we will not have over 30,000,000 fry to distribute. 



In my report to the Commission last winter, I recommended 

 that a cheap hatchery be built at Oshkosh, where the water in 

 which this fish hatches naturally can be had for hatching purposes. 

 I am satisfied now, that if we had built such a hatchery this spring, 

 we would have had over 100,000.000 wall-eyed pike fry to dis- 

 tribute. 



Last year was the first instance in which we have had any 

 pike eggs die in the jars at the Milwaukee hatchery, after the eye 

 of the fish was discernible. In previous years the loss of eggs 

 occurred in all cases before the eggs had reached that stage in 

 which ycu can distinguish the eye of the fish in the egg. Such 

 losses, I have always held, were due to the scarcity of male fish, 

 or that the milt from the males — which were always undersized — 

 was not of sufificient strength to produce strong and healthy im- 

 pregnation. This year we had an abundance of excellent male 

 fish, and many more than we required; and the results, so far as 

 fertilizing the eggs was concerned, was very satisfactory, as experi- 

 ments made at the time the eggs were taken fully demonstrated. 

 In these experiments we held the eggs of the pike in the river 

 water, from which the parent fish were taken, for fifteen days, and 

 we had no loss with the eggs. 



* Kxtr.icl from Report of Superintendent James Nevin to the I'ish Commissioners of 

 Wisconsin, dated June l5, 1S97. 



