138 Thirtieth Annual Meeting 



ill our ]\Iissisquoi Eiver pens. There were three able bodied men 

 present to handle the fish besides the writer, who stood by, ready 

 with the spawning pan. The fish was no sooner lifted from the 

 dip net by the men on the stripping platform, than with two ter- 

 rific blows with tail right and left, she sent her Qgg-?' flying across 

 the platform to the distance of a rod or two, in the meantime 

 struggling so violently that it required the combined efforts of the 

 three men to hold her. Finally having subsided to a degree of 

 comparative quietness, the few remaining eggs in her — perhaps 

 20,000 — were taken, Init though these were successfully hatched, 

 the stripping of the fish was, of course, a failure, as not more 

 than four per cent, of the eggs were taken. At still another time, 

 three large female sturgeon, supposed to be fully ripe were 

 caught. On holding the fish up by the tail, the eggs sagged in 

 the abdomen as with a fully ripe salmon, and in order to ensure 

 our not losing these eggs as others had been previously lost, two 

 of these fish were knocked in the head and instantly killed, when, 

 to the great dismay of the spawn takers, the eggs were found 

 after all, not to be sufficiently mature to be fertilized. To avoid 

 a repetition of this risk, the third fish, which appeared to V)e the 

 least ripe of all, was put in confinement to ensure the further 

 ripening of her eggs. This fish spawned that very night. 



The above instances illustrate how elusive and disappointing 

 the sturgeon were, when an attempt was made to get their eggs, 

 and now many diHiculties presented themselves, even after their 

 mysterious character had been removed. 



The difficulties did not prove wholly insurmountable, how- 

 ever. All the fishing for spawning sturgeon had been done, this 

 year, on the Missisquoi with nets. On the Lamoille, we encoun- 

 tered something different. Near the south bank of that river, 

 about four miles from its mouth, and half a mile from the West 

 Milton postoffice, Vermont, is a place known to the residents of 

 that neighborhood as the "Sturgeon Hole." Here the main body 

 of the river rushes through a rocky gorge not over twenty or 

 thirty feet wide, with precipitous walls of solid rock on each side. 

 Just below the gorge is a hole about forty-five feet deep, appar- 

 ently shaped somewhat like a boat, in which the spawning stur- 

 geon collect, usually very soon after their appearance at the 

 mouth of the river, but most pn)bal)ly when tlie water reaches 



