14 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 
tion began early in September, but owing to the low water it was ve 
light as compared with former years. The total humpback-egg col- 
lections amounted to 1,550,000, all of which, with the exception of 
30,000 forwarded for exhibit at San Francisco, were used in making 
up a shipment of 7,000,000 eggs destined for New England stations, 
the balance of the consignment being contributed by other Washing- 
ton stations. In addition to the humpback collections, 149,000 
chinook-salmon eggs were taken during the fall, 1,238,000 silver- 
salmon eggs during the fall and winter, and 3,212,000 steelhead-trout 
eggs in the spring, the last take being the largest for several years. 
At the [llabot Creek substation, where the run of humpback and 
chinook salmon was interfered with by low water, egg collections of 
the former numbered 2,500,000 and of the latter nearly 4,000,000. 
Later on the chum eggs were lost, the water in the flume and hatching 
troughs freezing solidly during a spell of very cold weather, despite 
the efforts put forth to save them. Silver-salmon egg collections 
were disappointing here as elsewhere, only 44,000 being taken. 
Egg collections at the Puget Sound stations amounted, in round 
numbers, to 39,000,000, of which about 25,000,000 were of the chum, 
or dog, salmon, over 3,500,000 of the humpback, 7,000,000 of the 
silver, a little over 500,000 of the chinook, and about 3,000,000 of the 
steelhead trout. Plantings of fry of the various species named aggre- 
gated nearly 34,000,000. The run of humpback salmon here, as else- 
where in Washington, was light, the lack of the usual abundance of 
fresh water in the sound basin apparently causing the main body of 
the run to seek more northerly streams. 
At Duckabush the pond system was completed during the year and 
a battery of 32 eyeing troughs was jristalleal In connection with the 
work at Quilcene a convenient slough near the station was converted 
into a nursery pond with a capacity for 2,000,000 fry, and an eyeing 
plant, consisting of a battery of 24 troughs, was constructed in the 
close vicinity of the trap where the fish were taken, thus obviating 
the loss and expense heretofore involved in the transportation of the 
green eggs 2 miles to the hatching station. 
In advance of the blueback season in the Quinault Sect a battery 
of 86 troughs was installed in a new building 40 by 77 feet in dimen- 
sions and supplied with water from a new flume, and by October 10, 
when the run of salmon made its appearance, racks and traps had 
been built in three creeks emptying into Quinault Lake and River 
and everything was in readiness for the collection of eggs, which — 
began three days later. From that ‘time on collections were made 
daily until December 18, on which date, the hatchery being filled, the 
racks were withdrawn and a considerable number of unspawned fish 
was set free. 
Two kinds of apparatus were used to capture the fish, namely, 
upstream traps and seines, the latter being employed in deep holes 
in the creeks and in the upper part of the river. In some of the seine 
hauls as many as a thousand fish, nearly all of them ripe, were taken 
at atime. The run was said by the native Indians to be the largest 
ever known in that region. The 18,000,000 eggs constituting the 
season’s take were transferred by station launch to the field hatchery, 
and, notwithstanding the intensely cold weather encountered during 
the winter—the ice formation on the hatchery floor being at one 
time 6 inches thick—they were of such excellent quality as to pro- 
