EXPORTATION OF FISHES AND HATCHING APPARATUS. 10 13 



albus Les.) in a three quart vessel, it will revolutionize the methods of 

 hatching, and economize labor as well as space. 



Experiments are being made with modifications of these apparatus, 

 referred to, at the Wisconsin hatching-house, by Mr. H. W. Welsher, and 

 in the Canadian establishment at Sandwich, Ontario, under Mr. Samuel 

 Wilmot. 



Mr. Livingston Stone, of the United States commission, has used an 

 apparatus which he calls a "basket" for the California salmon eggs. 

 He places them in a coarse wire-cloth basket, suspended from a square 

 wooden frame inserted in the compartments of the Williamson troughs 

 (see part II, Keport of the United States Commissioner); eggs in bulk 

 to the amount of three or four quarts are placed in these, and have 

 been carried through successfully. The basket, by a few slight yet 

 quick movements, has the eggs turned over, so that the dead ones may 

 be picked out. For the larger fish-eggs this may answer a good pur- 

 pose. As it affords the opportunity of keeping young fishes in the 

 compartments, as before described, its efficiency should have a further 

 trial. 



Mr. Von Behr speaks of the eggs of the Coregonns /era of Lake Con- 

 stance, as " the despair of our fish-culturists." Having witnessed the 

 great difficulties encountered in the first attempts of fish-culturists to 

 propagate the whitefish of the great lakes {Coregonus albus, Les.), it is 

 readily understood what it must be to hatch the eggs of the species re- 

 ferred to, which Mr. Rudolph Hessel informs me are about one-half the 

 size of the eggs of the American species. 



It is not too much to say that no American culturist has fully tested 

 his skill and ability in his profession until he has succeeded in hatching 

 seventy-five or eighty per centum of a fair quantity of whitefish eggs. 

 In delicacy and sensitiveness they exceed all species handled in this 

 country. 



The history of the beginning of this enterprise is given on page 25, of 

 Part II, Keport of United States Commissioner. Since that time, with 

 the use of the tray methods, the work has become very extensive along 

 the lakes. This winter, 1876-'77, there have been placed in the hatching- 

 houses of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Canada about twenty-seven 

 millions of the eggs. 



At some of the establishments the fatality is very large ; at a few, it 

 does not reach 25 per centum. The principal point to be regarded, after 

 well impregnated eggs have been laid down on the trays, where the sup- 

 ply of water is suitable, is the removal of dead eggs. An evenly-sus- 

 tained low temperature, in the neighborhood of freezing, is undoubtedly 

 best. To call attention to the necessity for the removal of dead eggs 

 may seem a very unnecessary caution to the careful culturist. But the 

 usual routine and force in a hatching-house, caring for the eggs of mem- 

 bers of the genus Salmo, is found to be quite a different matter from the 

 ■work required with these sensitive eggs. They will need attention very 



