Ainrricdii Fisheries Sociefij. 123 



these eggs from thv y<)ung(.'r fish all round the country, selling 

 them to state commissions and private hatcheries, is toward the 

 introduction of an inferior fish. 



Mr. Lane : I would state for the henefit of the society that I 

 always manage to select my fish from the eighteen months' old 

 fish, hut I select them when they are fingerlings ; that is, I will, 

 for instance, select them this fall from the fish hatched this 

 spring, and from those fish I take the stock to replenish my stock 

 with. As ]\Ir. Titcomh says, I have introduced new eggs from 

 other hatcheries, but I never have thought that the inbreeding 

 ever hurt my fish at all. I have not seen any ill effects of it. 

 But I have only been at it seven ^-ears, and i)erha])s it would not 

 occur in that time. 



^Ir. Titcomb: Introducing eggs from other hatcheries coun- 

 terbalances the inbreeding. 



]\Ir. Lane: I never thought that they did deteriorate by in- 

 breeding, becavise of putting in this new ])lood — that is what I 

 meant to infer, that the introducing of this new stock kept the 

 old stock up to the standard. 



]\Ir.Titcoml) : That is just the ])oint he makes, that you 

 should do that. 



Mr. Lane: That is what I have done. But I have saved the 

 stock on the very principle that you mentioned, that the market 

 does not require large fish. When I send them to >sew York for 

 food they do not want ovt-r half-pound fish; they will take them 

 as high as three-(piartei's of a ])()und. but from one-((uai-|er (o 

 one-half a pound is as big as they want; and in that way good, 

 ]iic(» fingerlings and two yt-ars old are plenty large enough. So 

 we do not keep fish until they are two and a half years old : we 

 cannot keep them to sell numy eggs from, and that is the reason 

 that these commercial hatcheries sell them young and have noth- 

 ing but the eighteen months old fish to take the eggs from. 



'Sir. Clark: There is one point in this [)ai>er in which 1 do 

 not quite agree with ^Ir. Sykes, and that is in retrrence to the 

 color of the eggs of fish that are bred in and in. I had the im- 

 pression from the })aper that the color of the eggs indicated that 

 the fish had been so bred. 



Dr. Birge : I did not so understand it. 



