AMERICAN FlSIIElilES SOCIF/rV. 87 



two linudred thousand a day. and this continued until all the 

 cultivated trout fry were dead. The wild trout fry subse- 

 (jucntly died also, except about a thousand or two thousand. 

 The Atlantic salmon recovered, none having died, and, when 

 planted, were apparently tine, healthy fish. 



As soon as the trouble began the Sui)erintendent notified 

 me and I began an investigation, and I soon became convinced 

 that the trouble was caused i)rimarily by a low vitality among 

 the fry, due to too long continued inbreeding, and immediately 

 to an insufficient amount of oxygen in the water on account 

 of a vast amount of melted snow flowing in the spring, and 

 to some extent by over-crowding in the nursery troughs. 



It transpired that new blood had not been infused into the 

 breeding stock for nearly seventeen years. This, it appears, 

 was not altogether the fault of the Su})erintendent, because on 

 at least two occasions he had made application for a change 

 (»f blood, and about a year ago, shortly after my appointment 

 as State Statistician of Fisheries, he had informed me of this 

 fact and made application for wild eggs (which I secured him), 

 and expressed his fears lest there would be trouble because 

 he had not received the new blood previously asked for. 



My investigation showed that the w^eather last fall was 

 favorable to the hatching of all species of trout at the Allen- 

 town station. This was equally true as regards the water, 

 although flowing from a gravel or disintegrated rock spring 

 which has less aeration than one flowing from a limestone 

 formation. The brook trout hatched in from forty to forty-two 

 days, and appeared at first in a fairly satisfactory condition, 

 except that they were under the normal size. The growth was 

 then observed to be unusually slow, and they were fully fifty 

 days in absorbing the sac. They were also very sluggish in 

 their movements, which were only partially corrected by 

 salt baths. Their sluggishness was also markedly noticeable 

 during the feather washing. Instead of moving about in a 

 lively manner when this was done, they would scarcely move 

 at all, and. in fact, allowed themselves to be pushed about 

 without resistance. Suddenly another change took place. The 

 fry often became overactive, very excitable and wild, and show- 

 ing great signs of fear. The little fish, perhaps sluggish and 

 apathetic a moment before, wonld suddenly snap at anything 

 floating in the water and seemed to be consumed with hunger, 

 although they received an abundance of food. They even ate 

 their own excrement, and this, instead of being of a healthy 

 black color, was white, showing that the food given passed 

 undigested through the stomach. The fish were also thin, as 

 though half starved. The gills were whitened and apparently 

 without blood. 



