14G Thirty- Second Annual Meeting 



same nest with the same male, the second female entering the 

 nest inside of twenty-four hours after the first female, and hec 

 eggs were deposited apparently right on top of the first eggs. 



Mr. Clark: What do you mean by first and second spa^ai- 

 ing? 



Mr. Beeman : I mean after the male bass had cleaned up the 

 gravel in his nest and selected a mate and this pair had gone in, 

 and the female had spawned, she left, and the male remained 

 on the nest, and inside of twenty-four hours I observed another 

 different female was there with this male bass and spawned 

 there. Four instances of this kind I observed at our hatchery 

 this year. 



Mr. Lydell : I found the same condition in the large-mouth 

 bass this year. We had two lots of eggs, one lot hatched and 

 there were three or four days before the other came off, and you 

 could distingiiish the difference between the two schools of fry. 



Mr. Beeman : There was no distinction between the size of 

 the fry, because the eggs were deposited -within twenty-four 

 hours of each other, and when the fry rose from those boxes it 

 was a sight to behold. They were so thick you could not see the 

 gravel in the bottom of the boxes. 



Mr. Leary: Don't you think it ^vas the same female? 



Mr. Beeman: No, sir, there was such a wide difference in 

 size it was easy to distinguish. I am certain that they were dif- 

 ferent females for that reason. 



Mr. Lydell: You are certain that the first lot of eggs laid 

 were not disturbed? 



Mr. Beeman : They were not disturbed. 



Mr. Lydell : I have had them this year lay one lot of eggs 

 and the male would immediately destroy the eggs, and there 

 would be another spawning with another female, and on exami- 

 nation the eggs were found to be bad. 



Mr. Beeman : We had the same fish spawn the third time. 



Mr. Titcomb : How long a period was covered by the spawn- 

 ing season from the first fish which spa\raed to the last one? 



Mr. Beeman : The first bed to be taken and spawned on was 

 May 10th, on Sunday morning. Now these are notes that I 

 took, and I have not had an opportunity to refer to them — T just 

 kept a diary noting down some of the interesting things I o1)- 



