432 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



One who has not the opportunity to set up hatching jars 

 or boxes may proceed with the fertiHzation of pike-eggs 

 in the way described above, and lay them out in the open 

 lake, selecting the shallowest and best sheltered spots, if 

 possible with a grassy bottom, or even on overflowed 

 meadows, that will stand three or four weeks under water. 

 Before all, care must be taken in laying out the spawn, that 

 it is well spread out, so that the eggs shall touch each other 

 as little as possible; for if a bad tgg comes in contact with 

 a good one, the good one is spoiled. — Albert Michaelis, in 

 " Fischer ei-Zeitung " (Neudamm), December i8, ipop. 



EEL CULTURE IN GERMANY 



The position held by eel culture in the estimation of the 

 leading German authorities is perhaps best shown by the 

 following extract from the annual report of the Central 

 Fishery Society of Schleswig-Holstein for 1907-8 : 



"Of all measures that can be taken for the improvement 

 of the fish of our waters and the increase of their product, 

 the generous planting with eels appears to be the most im- 

 portant, especially for our numerous North German waters, 

 A plentiful stocking of our waters, first of all the lakes, 

 and then the flowing waters, with eels is really more im- 

 portant than many other fish distributions. The eel offers 

 an excellent means of utilizing the nutritive material of our 

 waters. Its principal foods (the larger insect-larvae, 

 bivalves and snails, water-fleas and bugs, ruffs and stickle- 

 backs, and other small worthless fishes), everywhere to be 

 found in considerable quantities, can hardly be utilized and 

 turned into fish-flesh to the same extent by any other fish 

 and certainly not by any so valuable fish as the eel. The 

 eel always finds ready sale at very good prices. All organs 

 upon which devolves the care of the German fisheries should 

 therefore give the greatest attention to the multiplication 

 of this fish in our waters. The stocking of our inland 

 waters with eels depends at present on the ascent of eel-fry 

 from the sea — from the North Sea and the Baltic. 



