American Fisheries Society. 155 



Mr. Beeman: The bass all deserted the nests within threo 

 days' time after the eggs were deposited. Now the question is, 

 were the eggs fertile, or had they never been fertilized. I made 

 some examination with a microscope of some just deposited, 

 some two days old, some three days old, but I failed to discover 

 any germs in them, although the size of the egg makes it difficult 

 to get a clear vision of it through a powerful microscope. 



Mr. Nevin : Did your bass hatch in six days in a tempera- 

 ture of 60° ? 



Mr. Beeman : No, between four and five days, and not in a 

 temperature of 60°; they did not spawn until 64°, and at the 

 time the bass hatched the temperature was nearly 70°, it was 

 beautiful weather, clear every day, and I could observe every- 

 thing that took place through two of the spawning periods. 



Mr. Seymour Bower : I do not want to discourage Mr. Bee- 

 man or anybody else engaged in the propagation of small-mouth 

 bass, but speaking of raising bass from the standpoint of an 

 amateur leads me to say this, that some six or seven years ago 

 when we started out in the Fish Commission purely as amateurs, 

 we had the best success in proportion to the number of adult 

 fish in our stock ponds that we have ever had, and it was almost 

 wholly guesswork. It was probably pure luck — 1 do not know 

 what else to call it. Since then we have not had as large a pro- 

 portion of beds that were productive in any one season — of 

 course we have hatched a great many more bass, but in propor- 

 tion to the number of fish, stock fish, we have never equaled our 

 first season. 



To determine whether the eggs are fertilized or unfertil- 

 ized this present season we have employed Professor Reighard 

 at our Mill Creek bass station; he is recognized as one of the 

 most eminent zoologists in this country, and he has been there 

 ever since the beginning of the spawning season, and is there ac 

 the present time. I asked him how he accounted for it that so 

 many beds were non-productive, and whether he considered the 

 eggs were fertilized or not, and he said, so far as he has been 

 able to determine, that the eggs were fertilized, and that he 

 could not account for the fact of their not hatching in any other 

 way, except that there was a lack of vitality, either in the pareuc 

 fish or in the eggs themselves. There was not sufficient vitality 



