LXVI REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



iited, when Latched, to lakes in Michigan. Mr. Clark remarks that 

 land-locked salmon have done well in Michigan lakes, quite a number 

 of adult specimens having been taken during the last year. The brook- 

 trout work, too, was entirely satisfactory. Four hundred and seventy- 

 three thousand eggs of this species were obtained, of which number 

 357,000 were shipped away, and 50,000 hatched. The whitefish fry 

 were shipped from North ville by Fish Commission car, and from Alpena 

 by car and boat. In this work the car was run over 7,000 miles. As a 

 rule, the railroad companies made no charge for hauling the cars of 

 the Commission. Two million fish were usually taken on a trip. 



An interesting experiment is being made at the JSTorthville hatchery 

 in growing whitefish in confinement with the aid of artificial feeding. 

 Mr. Clark placed in confinement 1,200 of the fry hatched March 12. 

 On the 1st of September 276 were alive in good condition, and some of 

 them were as much as six inches in length. This is the most successful 

 experiment of the kind ever made, and opens up great possibilities in 

 the future. Like young trout, they were fed exclusively on chopi)ed 

 liver. They grow very rapidly. Forty-seven million young whitefish 

 were deposited in the following lakes : Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake 

 Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake Michigan. 



Mr. Clark calls the attention of the Commission to the importance of 

 making arrangements for jDenning up whitefish, so that the immature 

 eggs may have a chance to ripen, and the whole work of removal and 

 transportation be facilitated. He finds the whitefish particularly suited 

 for this work, fully as much, if not more so, than the salmon or trout. 

 He reports that Mr. Oren Chase, assistant superintendent of the Michi- 

 gan State establishment at Detroit, was the first to adopt this method, 

 finding it of the utmost possible benefit. 



Mr. Douglass, at Sandusky, in behalf of the Fish Commission of Ohio, 

 was successful in the same operation, taking several millions of eggs 

 from penned fish. 



The matter had not been brought to Mr. Clark's attention sufficiently 

 early in the year to make the necessary arrangements for practical 

 work, but his experiments in that direction were satisfactory, and he 

 proposes in 1883 to carry out the process on a large scale, seeing no 

 reason why the yield of eggs may not be brought up to hundreds of 

 millions if necessary. It is to be understood, of course, that the treat- 

 ment of the fish in this way does not injure it for market purposes. 



For many years past, some of the establishments on the Detroit Eiver 

 have been in the habit of seining for the whitefish and placing them 

 alive, when caught, in pools, thence to be taken out as the demands of 

 the market might require. Considerable use was made of the oppor- 

 tunity of taking eggs from the ripe fish before they were put into the 

 pool, but no artificial processes were subsequently applied to them. It 

 is understood, however, that a great amount of natural spawning fol- 

 lowed, with a very decided advantage to the fisheries of the river. 



