REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 25 
The collecting of seed lobsters was carried on as usual during the 
summer of 1914 and the spring of 1915, and from the 1,588 thus handled 
34,643,000 eggs were obtained, an average of 21,815 per lobster. From 
the total number of lobster eggs secured during the year, 193,800,000 
fry were produced and planted along the Maine coast. 
The cod-fishing fleet operating off Casco Bay in March and April 
was small and fish were far from plentiful, and only 34,511,000 eggs 
were collected; these produced 21,841,000 healthy fry. 
Early in April the station launches were equipped with a force 
of spawn takers and sent into the fields off Boothbay and Portland 
to collect haddock eggs from the fleet of netters operating there. 
While fish of miscellaneous sizes were fairly abundant, only a few 
large mature fish were in evidence, and only 3,584,000 eggs of poor 
quality were taken during the entire fishing season, which extended 
well into the month of May. 
Beginning March 1 and extending through the month of April, 
men were employed to attend fyke nets set in the vicinity of Booth- 
bay Harbor for the capture of flounders. The work with this species 
was only moderately successful, a smaller number of brood fish than 
last year being taken, while the losses of eggs during incubation were 
greater. The 487,250,000 eggs taken produced 394,499,000 fry. 
The major fish-cultural work of the Gloucester station was ad- 
dressed to the cod, pollock, haddock, flounder, and lobster, and oper- 
. ations with one or more species were in progress almost continuously 
for eight months beginning November 1, when the first collection of 
pollock eggs was made. During the first six weeks of the pollock 
spawning season, which extended to February 9, there were indi- 
cations that the take of eggs would exceed that of 1914, but a series 
of heavy storms in December scattered the schools of fish and drove 
them off the fishing grounds and completely destroyed the fisher- 
men’s nets. Although 855,020,000 eggs were taken, this number was 
considerably less than in the previous year. Owing to a scarcity of 
spawning cod throughout the winter and spring on the inshore fish- 
ing grounds, the take of eggs at Gloucester was comparatively light, 
aggregating 82,460,000, which produced 52,250,000 fry; these were 
deposited in local waters with 18,030,000 fry hatched from eggs sent 
to the Gloucester station from Woods Hole. 
The hatching of the winter flounder, which was taken up Feb- 
ruary 24, was greatly handicapped by the scarcity of brood fish, 
resulting from excessive fishing operations during the previous sum- 
mer and fall. From the 276 spawning fish secured from the fisher- 
men, 134,180,000 eggs were taken and 121,090,000 fry hatched and 
distributed. 
Small collections of haddock eggs were made between March 13 
and April 28, the season’s collections amounting to 38,410,000, from 
which 25,840,000 fry were hatched and returned to the spawning 
grounds, the last of them being liberated on May 10. 
Active fish-cultural work at the Woods Hole station began on 
- November 27, 1914, with the delivery of 1,500 brood cod obtained 
from commercial fishermen. Later acquisitions brought the total 
brood stock of the station up to 3,068, of which 1,310 were placed in 
the cistern and the remainder in live cars. The steamer Phalarope 
was stationed at the beginning of the spawning season on the fishing 
