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AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 



order to secure a good set, and nature provides for the loss of 

 immense numbers of eggs and embryo oysters, and it is this 

 great waste which we are trying to save. If we do no more 

 than to mix the eggs and milt together it is a great improvement 

 on nature's methods which only brings an occasional egg within 

 reach of the fecundating fluid. 



Dr. Hudson. — I could talk of course on this subject for hours, 

 for this is a matter we have had a great deal to do with in Con- 

 necticut for the last six years. I would simply add to what Mr, 

 Booth has said that in Connecticut and on Long Island Sound, 

 the time for spawning oysters varies from about the middle 

 of June to the first of September. It is governed entirely by the 

 depth of the water. Where the water is shallow it becomes 

 warm more rapidly than where it is deep water. Oysters there 

 grow where it is ten feet deep out to where it is ten fathoms or 

 sixty feet. Mr. Booth has described sufficiently for practical 

 purposes the method of cultivation, which is the one universally 

 carried on there, and were it not for the starfish, as he has said, 

 I think the product would be almost unlimited. The only other 

 enemy that we have on Long Island Sound is the drill, which is 

 nothing like as dangerous in its effect as the starfish. There is 

 another enemy to the oyster in portions of New York State — 

 the drumfish, a very powerful fish with powerful jaws, which 

 crushes the oyster and destroys a good many. It is called the 

 drumfish owing to the peculiar sound which it emits, and which 

 can be heard by those who are immediately over it. 



Mr. BissELL. — I would like to ask if your Commission have 

 ever attempted to spawn the oyster, or have you simply at- 

 tempted to catch them in the water ? 



Dr. Hudson. — We have never done that as a general thing. 

 Some of these experiments have been made, and the most in- 

 teresting one in our water was by Lieut. Winslow, who has been 

 engaged in this business. He came to Connecticut some four 

 or five years ago ; he had a can invented, and he could drop 

 this can to the bottom of the Sound, and then when it reached 

 the bottom by a peculiar contrivance he could pull out the bot- 



