120 Tzveiity-uiiith Annual Meeting 



be nearly ripe and we put them in our pens, hoping that their 

 eg"gs might mature sufficiently in a few days to be taken and 

 impregnated. Of the remainder, ten were males and four were 

 fmales. These were then butchered by the fishermen. On 

 opening the female fish, their eggs were found to be far advanced 

 toward maturity, and it looked as if in a week or two at the 

 latest we should strike fish with fully ripened eggs. In point of 

 fact, unaccountable as it seems, we never caught any sturgeon 

 the rest of the season that had any riper eggs than these had. 

 It is needless to tell the story of our continued disappointments. 

 The fishermen brought in plenty of fish, and allowed us the 

 utmost freedom in examining them or penning them up, as we 

 choose, but although we followed up the sturgeon until the latter 

 part of June, examining them all and penning up what we 

 thought to be nearly ripe, we never came across a single ripe 

 fish or took a single egg. All that we examined were either 

 spawned out or not ripe, and none of those that we confined in 

 the pens seemed to make any progress toward maturity. 



I will only state that the fish that we examined seemed to 

 grow less mature, if anything, as the season advanced, and at all 

 times the development of their eggs presented the most per- 

 plexing variety. By way of illustration, I will state the con- 

 dition of the eggs of the female sturgeon that were killed by the 

 fishermen and examined by us on several days. As I said above, 

 the eggs of the fish that we examined on May i8th were in all 

 stages of development. The same was true of those examined on 

 Mav 25tli — ^although on both days there were some that were 

 very nearh' ripe. On the 29th when we had expected to find 

 fish about fully ripe, we examined in all, the eggs of four females. 

 The eggs of the first fish were only half developed, — the second 

 fish had just spawned, — the eggs of the third were just forming, 

 — and the eggs of the fourth were about one-fourth developed. 

 The same discouraging experience continued until the end, when 

 after following the sturgeon thirty or forty miles southward from 

 Albaugh, we abandoned this Will o' the Wisp chase and returned 

 to Cape Vincent Station, it being then the last week in June. 



