164 REPORT OP COMMISSIONER OP FISH AND FISHERIES, 



having them upset and the contents spilled out, or else greatly injured 

 by the action of the waves, experiments made in this direction nearly 

 always resulting disastrously. 



Much more wholesale and efficient methods of accomplishing this 

 important object are, however, at our command, as suggested by the suc- 

 cess of experiments prosecuted during the spring of 1877 at Havre de 

 Grace in hatching eggs of shad on a large scale, in connection with 

 the operations ot the U. S. Fish Commission and of the Maryland com- 

 mission, Mr. T. B. Ferguson, the efficient and accomplished Maryland 

 commissioner of fisheries, has devised a method by which the hatch- 

 ing of shad can be prosecuted in tidal waters and by which not only a 

 great number of eggs can be hatched in a very small space, but also 

 the danger of losing the eggs in consequence of the upsetting of the 

 hatching boxes in stormy weather can be prevented. This device con- 

 sists in a series of buckets, with wire-gauze bottoms, which are alter- 

 nately depressed and raised by means of an axis rotated by steam-power. 

 The buckets dip into the water, the eggs floating in them, and the gen- 

 tle motion of elevation and depression through the space of five or ten 

 inches, the extent and rapidity of which can be varied at pleasure, gives 

 the eggs that agitation and the continual contact with a new supply of 

 water necessary to their proper condition. Nine million eggs were thus 

 hatched with a much less expenditure of labor than heretofore ; and 

 instead of some hundreds of floating boxes being called into play, six 

 to twelve buckets, worked along the edge of a floating scow, answered 

 all the purpose. 



Still other methods can be used, possibly in some cases to even greater 

 advantage, namely, the placing of the eggs in funnel-shaped vessels, 

 with a stream of salt water pumped up through the bottom, giving the 

 eggs a constant agitation. A wire-gauze screen prevents the eggs from 

 dropping into the mouth of the funnel, and the constant overflow of 

 the water carries off all the dead offal matter. It would, of course, re- 

 quire a considerable expenditure to start such an establishment. A 

 small engine, of four or five horse-power, with the necessary accompan- 

 iments, however, would probably be large enough. With such an appa- 

 ratus in connection with some of the great fisheries, like those in Secon- 

 net River at Rhode Island, oratMenemsha Bight on Martha's Vineyard, 

 results of incalculable value might and probably would in time be ob- 

 tained. Instead of counting the yield of the fisheries by the hundreds of 

 thousands, millions could bo estimated for, and it would not be difficult 

 to guarantee the propagation of one hundred millions of young fish as 

 the result of a single season's work. These, when the yolk-bag was ab- 

 sorbed, could be scattered or sown along the coast in different localities 

 so as to increase the opportunity of finding suitable food and of escap- 

 ing the ravages of their enemies. 



