Kendall. — Anatomical Facts 53 



from day to day, I have found that if in stripping we leave one or two 

 eggs, the trout will stay around the spawning bed until it gets rid of 

 those eggs. We find that they are very persistent. We have penned 

 fish two miles from the spawning beds and taken what we believed to 

 be all their eggs, and within twenty-four hours we have found those 

 same fish over on the spawning beds two miles away. I inferred that 

 these fish were there to get rid of two or three eggs that we had left 

 behind in the stripping process. 



We have taken eggs from year to year from the same brood stock. 

 I have in mind a thirty-five acre pond which yields 7,000 or 8,000 wild 

 trout annually, all of which ascend the stream to spawn. That has 

 always been the best trout pond for angling that I have ever known or 

 have had the pleasure of fishing for ordinary sized trout; the fishing 

 has been kept up by returning about ten or fifteen per cent of the 

 progeny of the eggs taken. No mortality was ever noticed among the 

 adult fish there, although they have been stripped annually for more 

 than twenty years ; the fish are all in fine condition. 



I do not think any of us can say too much about proper handling. 

 But I want to emphasize what Mr. E. W. Cobb said, namely, that we 

 fish culturists cannot afford to have it go out from this Society that the 

 method of spawning fish is injurious. I received a letter recently in 

 New York City about the depletion of whitefish in a certain lake where 

 the fish are caught on licensed lines. The complaint was made that 

 five or six years ago the Conservation Commission operated a field 

 station there for the collection of whitefish eggs during one season only, 

 and that the depletion of the whitefish is attributable to that action on the 

 part of the Commission. Of course, there was caught only a very small 

 portion of the spawning fish in the lake which is fifteen miles in length. 

 We run up against these things constantly, but certainly conditions as 

 to public sentiment are not as bad as formerly. In the early days, if 

 a fish culturist operated on lakes to get the spawn of wild fish, no 

 matter what the species, it was claimed that he was injuring the fish, 

 and if the fishing was poor the next year that condition was always 

 attributed to the taking of spawn by the fish culturist. Of course, we 

 know that is not the case. 



Mr. Nevin : I may say that we handle in the neighborhood of 

 16,000 spawning fish every spring. We lose on the average from 25 to 

 125 fish a year. Some die three or four days after spawning, some 

 a week afterwards, but we always make a point of picking up the dead 

 fish and putting the fact on record. But we lose very few fish. 



Dr. Kendall: Possibly the impression prevails that I was stating as 

 a fact that inevitable injury results to the fish in the stripping process. 

 Now, one fish culturist may have all the success in the world ; he may 

 not injure the fish in any way and he may get all the eggs that nature 

 will provide. So far as he is concerned if he maintains that condition 

 he has solved the problem. But my paper was directed to the improve- 

 ment of conditions with a view to eliminating certain dangers in the 



