106 Thirty-Second Annual Meeting 



is very attractive ; and it would appear as though those sporadic 

 spawners had been forced down by unnatural conditions up the 

 river. If they do spawn in the Eapids, then I think that on the 

 Susquehanna we will look for them up towards Port Deposit, 

 Columbia, and the number of eggs available would be unlimited. 

 1 remember the eggs that Mr. Jones referred to, also the first 

 ripe striped bass stripped at Havre de Grace in 1886 and 1887, \ 

 think we got 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 eggs— it was a sixty-five 

 pound fish. The eggs were hatched and part of the fry were sent 

 to some point in New York state, I don't remember where just 

 now, but the records of the Commission will show it. Those fry 

 were shipped in shad cans, just as the shad fry are sent. 



Mr. Leary : Our fishennen have fished with pound nets in 

 Albemarle Sound. They usually leave the nets in the water for 

 a week and lift them on Saturday. Xow if that can be done it 

 seems to me that they might be held in a pen of some sort of ma- 

 terial for quite a while. I know that to be a fact, that once a 

 week they lift their nets and take the fish out and sell them. I 

 have seen as many as 600 taken at one lift of the net. 



Mr. Worth: I think we should have a barrier or fence to 

 stop the fishes arranged so that they would not know tliat the}' 

 were confined. Of course it is one of those things that is worth 

 trying, as it would cost very little to do it. The water is so swift 

 running that a man standing in it has difficulty in keeping his 

 feet even where the water was only two feet deep. 



Mr. Bean : I do not know whether the keeping of striped 

 bass in aquaria for a term of years would have very niucli l)ear- 

 ing upon this prol^lem of spawning or not ; but it is a fact very 

 well known to many persons that the striped l)ass is one of the 

 fish that can be ke]it easily and will grow, thrive and remain 

 there free from parasites, fungus and disease of every kind — in 

 fact it is one of the very best fish of the fresh wat^^-rs for aquar- 

 ium purposes. It has been kept in confinement for a long term 

 of years. I know of some bass which must have been kept in 

 New York City as long as eight years, which are in good health, 

 feeding all the time when a fish will feed, (except in winter, 

 when they are in a sort of torpid condition) ; yet I do not know 

 whether any one has made any observation on the spawning of 

 those fish. Perhaps they never have spawned in those aquaria. 



