S-i Thlrfij-First Ainnuil Meeting 



the nests no one -was al)le to see any other and the tigliting from 

 this cause was practically eliminated. The nnmber of rows of 

 nests may be increased to three, or fonr, or more where the area 

 of shallow A\'ater is wide enough. 



The l)ass selected these nests in preference to any other 

 spawning ground. They cleaned up the gravel and behaved in 

 the nests in every particular as they would on natural spawning 

 grounds. The first time w^e tried these shielded nests, not a 

 single bass made a nest outside them, though there was plenty 

 of good gravel bottom available for the ]:)urpose. 



I come now to the second cause of fighting. The first season 

 that w\' tried these nests (1900) we got from 475 stock fish 

 315,000 fry and 750 fingerlings. In the season of 1891 the out- 

 put was very much less and there was considerable fighting 

 among the fish. This remained unexplained until the ponds 

 were drawn do^\'n after the spawning season, wlien it ap])eared 

 that, although the fish had been sorted, the number of male fish 

 was considerably in excess of the numl)er of females. It was 

 these excess males tliat had made trouble. Banding together they 

 went about breaking up the nests of their more fortunate 

 brothers. It is now our practice when we set the nests to seine 

 out the stock fish and sort them putting about forty males to 

 sixty females. Since each male is thus abundantly provided for, 

 the second source of fighting is gotten rid of. 



During the present season up to May 2Gth we bad i)r()(hiced 

 from 493 adult fish 430,000 fry— and we believe tliat we can do 

 as well every year. 



5. Up to the present year we liave been troubled with two 

 sources of loss incident to our irnter suppty. Tlie supply is a 

 spring fed bi'ook which runs over an open country before it 

 reaches us. Tlie water in this brook becomes cpiite warm on a 

 hot, sunnv dav and cools off at night. The temperature thus 

 falls al niglit soineliines as niueh as 13 degrees Fahrenheit and 

 becomes as low as -1(1 degrees Fahrenheit. This is disastrous, 

 since, when the temperature gets l)elow 50 degrees Fahrenheit 

 the adult hsb desert the nests and the eggs or young (vy are 

 killed by the sediment. W'v bavt' lost many fish in this way. We 

 now get over the diflicultv by watching the tempi'rature of the 



