American I'ishcrics Society. 119 



cult to gather information about their spawning- habits and still 

 more difficult to collect and impregnate their eggs. 



The first instance that I know of sturgeon eggs being suc- 

 cessfully taken and liatclied, ;)ccurred in 1<H75, when Selh (ireen, 

 assisted by Mr. A. Marks, obtained from the fishermen who 

 were fishing at North Hamburg on the Hudson, a ripe male and 

 female, from which four pans of eggs were taken by the Caesar- 

 ian operation of cutting the fish open. This occurred on the 

 7th day of June, about 10 a. m. ( )n the 9th day of June, about 

 3 p. m. the first movement of the embryo was observed. On the 

 loth of June the eggs began to hatch, and by 5 o'clock the next 

 morning, June nth, all the eggs were hatched out. The temp- 

 erature of the water during the period of hatching averaged 

 about 70 degrees F. 



In 1888, Professor Ryder, of the U. S. h^ish Commission, 

 made a very thorough study of the sturgeon at Delaware City, 

 Delaware. (See the U. S. Fish Commission Bulletin tor 1888), 

 and in 1893 Dr. Bashford Dean made some interesting experi- 

 ments, also at Delaware City, and since that time eggs have been 

 frequently taken from sea-going sturgeon. 



All the above experiments and studies have, however, been 

 conducted with the salt water sturgeon (Acipenser sturio). 



The Lake sturgeon (Acipenser ruliicundus), is another fish, 

 and. as far as I am aware, no extended observations in regard 

 to this fish have been recorded, except those by Mr. \\'illiam 

 Lang in 1890, for the Ohio Fish Commission. 



In the spring of 1899 I received permission from the L'nited 

 States Fish Commission to hinU for ripe sturgeon eggs on Lake 

 Champlain. Two fishermen having located at Alburgh Springs, 

 \'ermont, for the purpose of catching sturgeon for the New 

 York market, I arranged with them to have the privilege of 

 examining all the sturgeon they caught before they were butch- 

 ered; and for the time, established myself at Alburgh Springs 

 with Mr. J. B. Lamkin and Mr. Myron Green for assistants. 



On the 1 8th of May we overhauled our first l)atch of 

 sturgeon, to the number of sixteen. 1^vo females ajipeared to 



