52 American Fisheries Society 



more quickly than others, but we know that fish will not deposit their 

 eggs unless conditions are congenial and natural, until all the eggs that 

 are going to ripen have done so. 



Mr. J. W. TiTCOMB, Albany, N. Y. : Dr. Kendall has described 

 certain methods of squeezing the fish and getting out all the blood and 

 gurry in an effort to obtain the last tgg. If I found a man at any of 

 my hatcheries stripping fish in that way I would discharge him imme- 

 diately; we do not call that spawn taking or stripping. We always 

 caution our men as to the methods of stripping fish; our foremen in 

 charge pick the best men and educate them for that particular work, 

 and only those who will take all the necessary precautions are continued 

 at that class of work. A good stripper should command more wages 

 than does a man in any other branch of fish-cultural work, although we 

 know that anyone who does practical work in connection with fish 

 breeding and that sort of thing should have particular qualifications. 



Mr. William H. Rowe, West Buxton, Me. : This paper is of great 

 interest to me, as it is to anyone who is in charge of or exercises super- 

 vision over a hatchery. I have caught trout and salmon in the spring 

 of the year in the wild state which still retained the spawn of the fall 

 before. Dr. Kendall intimated that trout would not spawn if conditions 

 were not right. Well, trout of that kind are not found in commercial 

 hatcheries. I have thousands of trout that I do not make any attempt 

 to strip, and it is my experience that they deposit their eggs in the tank 

 with the other fish. Of course, the eggs are eaten by the fish; they are 

 never fertilized. 



Dr. Kendall spoke of the eggs being pressed into the liver of the 

 fish. I do not know by what process that could be done ; it surely 

 would not be spawn-taking. I saw a trout one time which weighed over 

 three pounds and which had been caught in the spring in a perfectly 

 ■wild pond. It had two large ovaries with the eggs ; each one was as 

 large as my hand. I do not think that that trout would ever have got 

 rid of those eggs; I think it would have died. If it had been the 

 product of a hatchery, the result would have been attributed to handling. 

 In this case, of course, the condition of the ovaries was not the result 

 of any handling. I think that spawning is a very critical time in the 

 life of the fish, and that in many cases they die either during the process 

 or as the result of not spawning. In the spring many dead fish are 

 found by men who drive logs in the rivers, fish not the product of any 

 hatchery. 



Mr. James Nevin, Madison, Wis. : A good man will not leave 

 many eggs in the fish after he has handled it. If when the fish is taken 

 up in the hand the eggs do not come freely, he should drop it and not 

 handle it until the next day or perhaps not for four or five days. I 

 have examined hundreds of fish after they have spawned, and have 

 found very few eggs in them. There is a great knack in handling fish ; 

 the whole thing is to do it properly. 



Mr. Titcomb: In the case of wild trout held in pens and stripped 



