150 American Fisheries Society 



happen to lodge. When they have hardened all movement is 

 presumed to have ceased and they remain immovable and in 

 darkness till the fry hatch. 



This is only theoretically so, however, for in nature especially 

 the best laid plans often come to grief. Very likely before the 

 eggs have hardened another pair of fish dig them up in the act of 

 depositing their own, and overseeding, the principal destroying 

 factor in natural propagation and the automatic governor of 

 reproduction prior to the advent of the white man and intensive 

 fishing, still has some effect in certain localities. 



I know of humpback spawning beds that are sometimes 

 spawned over ten times, and in many cases the eggs of finer and 

 early running varieties, such as sockeye, are dug up by dogs and 

 cohoes. Washouts in the streams and receding water, leaving the 

 eggs dry, are also foes to natural spawning, and many eggs are 

 devoured by trout, etc., before they are covered. 



Judging from the necessity of egg picking in the hatcheries 

 and the bad effects resulting from fungus if it is neglected, one 

 would suppose that the loss due to fungus in the gravel would be 

 enormous. From experiments and observations I am convinced 

 that the loss from this cause is negligible because the eggs are 

 not deposited in masses, and also because the infertile egg, the 

 source of nearly all the trouble in hatcheries, if not disturbed and 

 kept in darkness, has an existence that covers the incubating 

 period. This life may be described as merely a state of existence 

 without growth. Very little abuse will extinguish this existence, 

 and sudden changes in temperature are also fatal, and it is con- 

 sidered good hatchery practise to abuse the eggs until they are 

 eliminated. 



I contend that the removal of the infertile egg, and in fact 

 picking of any kind, is wholly unnecessary, and that the presence 

 of dead eggs of any kind should be viewed as a sign that there is 

 something wrong with a system that produces them. 



I first noticed this phenomenon in 1916 amongst some dog 

 salmon eggs I had buried in gravel, when I dug into it to see 

 what was happening, and in 1917 it was quite evident in many 

 whitefish jars. On December 5th, 1917, 1 filled a whitefish jar with 

 infertile eggs and gravel and on the 5th of April, 1918, these 

 infertile eggs had not decomposed and were in as fresh a state 



