ATKINS THE SALMON AND ITS ARTIFICIAL CULTURE. 267 



Thns it appears that the young salmon set free as the net pro- 

 duct of the season's work was 876,000, being 71 per cent, of the eggs 

 distributed, and 57 per cent, of those originally taken from the fish. 

 This result, though it compares favorably with previous operations 

 of the kind both in this country and abroad,* is far below what may 

 be expected under favorable circumstances. When the influences 

 that occasioned the serious injury to the eggs during their develop- 

 ment at Bucksport are avoided, as they evidently can be, there seems 

 no reason to doubt that the aggregate losses can be reduced to 10 

 or 15 per cent, of the eggs taken from the fish. The latter number can 

 also be largely increased by improvement In the mode of handling and 

 transporting the adult salmon, and the nse of more efficient means for 

 recapturing them in the fall. That there is room for improvement does 

 not, however, alter the fact that the season's operations were positively 

 successful, and, moreover, successful to an extent which, for the first 

 time, placed in the hands of the commissioners having the matter in 

 charge adequate material for the re-establishment of broods of salmon 

 in the exhausted rivers of New England. 



C — Tabular statements embodying observations on salmon 



AND SALMON RIVERS IN MAINE. 



The following tabular statements embody nearly all the facts observed 

 in connection with the breeding of salmon on the Penobscot River. 



In regard to the records of temperature, it should be stated that the 

 observations were made with ordinary instruments, and, for the most 

 part, by persons little accustomed to their use. Yet the results in these 

 cases accord so well with my own observations that I have confidence 

 in their general correctness. 



Table I.— Record of temperature at Craig's Pond Brook, Orland, Me., 1871. 



Taken near the surface, in the pound where the salmon were confined. 



*At the famous fish-breediug establishment at Hiiningeu, duriug the season of I871-'72, 

 the first year of the German management, out of two and a half millions of eggs col- 

 lected, one million were lost before they were distributed, and it is stated on good au- 

 thority that the loss was equally great while the establishment was under French con- 

 trol. [E.Hessel.MSS.] 



