COLLECTION OF EGGS OF SCHOODIC SALMON. 915 



undertake the capture of fish aud spawn. These grounds had been oc- 

 cupied for the same purpose several times before by sundry parties, and 

 there existed, at a spring half a mile from the stream, the ruins of a 

 small hatching-house built in 1869 by the States of Maine and Mas- 

 sachusetts. To avoid the expense of rebuilding the hatching-house and 

 maintaining an establishment through the winter and spring, it was de- 

 cided to arrange with the Dobsis Club to have the eggs cared for at their 

 hatching-house, fifteen miles distant, no doubt being entertained of 

 water communication remaining open until the close of the spawning- 

 season. 



Grand Lake stream receives the waters of Grand Lake and pours 

 them into Big Lake. Its length is about two and a half miles, and its 

 volume at a very low stage is about one hundred and thirty-eight cubic 

 feet per second. Its water, as it comes from Grand Lake, is exceed- 

 ingly pure. Its bed consists mostly of gravel and small bowlders. Its 

 current is mostly rapid. There is a large extent of ground which was 

 well adapted to spawning purposes until 1870, when a tannery was 

 erected near the head of the stream, and from time immemorial the 

 salmon of Grand Lake have come down into it in large numbers every 

 autumn to lay their eggs. The outlet of the lake is now commanded by 

 a dam, but it is of the sort known as a " driving dam," used for storing 

 water for the purpose of assisting the driving of logs ; the water is never 

 allowed to flow over the top of the dam, but through spacious gates 

 which admit the passage of fish to and fro at almost all times. 



The very best place to catch the salmon is close to the outlet of the 

 lake, as they first enter the stream. About two hundred feet below the 

 dam is a stretch of gravelly shallows where a man can wade any time 

 during the spawning-season quite across the stream. Here a net sus- 

 pended on stakes was stretched diagonally across the stream, leading at 

 its lower end into a set of inclosures (also of netting), constructed after 

 the manner of fish-weirs, so that the fish could easily enter but could 

 not escape. The nets used were all of a mesh too small to gill the fish. 

 The largest inclosure was about seventy feet long and forty wide, aud 

 had about five feet of water in the deepest part. In this it was intended 

 for the bulk of the fish to lie while awaiting maturity of the eggs. 

 Various other smaller inclosures were to serve for assorting the fish, to 

 separate those spawned from the immature, &c. A rough shed was 

 built to shelter the working party. Overlooking the whole on the bank 

 of the stream, a cottage was built to serve the purposes of work-shop, 

 storehouse, and lodging and boarding house. 



The necessity of transporting the eggs fifteen miles and of caring for 

 them (perhaps for a week or ten days), while awaiting shipment, and 

 guardingagainst a possible interruption of communications, compelled me 

 to devise a new piece of apparatus. I must have something that would 

 receive the eggs and hold them securely, that could be placed in a run- 

 ning stream and admit a free passage of water through from side to 



