122 Tiventy-ninth Annual Meeting 



spends to a considerable degree with what has been observed of 

 the spawning habits of the pike perch. 



(3) The sturgeon spawning season on the M'issisquoi River 

 is very short, and when the spawning is over the fish all go down 

 the river with a rush, and though there may be hundreds in .he 

 river one day, in forty-eight hours after there may not be one left 

 in the river. The rush down stream this year was on the nights of 

 the 27th and 28th of May. They began to go up the river about 

 the 20th, although there were sturgeon at the mouth of the Mis- 

 sisquoi River perhaps as early as the first week in May. The 

 sturgeon spawning season on the river this year was, therefore, 

 the week between the 20th and 27th of May. 



(4) The sturgeon does not always deposit all her eggs at 

 one Xnvx. A female fish whose eggs w^re so ripe and loose that 

 they came from lier witliout pressure, was found on being killed 

 and examined, to have at least two-thirds of her ovaries filled 

 with immature eggs. 



(5) When the female sturgeon is ripe, her abdomen sags- 

 when tlie fish is lifted by the tail, as in the case with ripe salmon. 

 Hence, there is no difficulty in distinguishing a ripe female. Her 

 eggs also fiow from her very easily, so easily, in fact, that the 

 difficulty w ith a ripe fish in artificial spawning is, not to get the 

 eggs out, but to keep them in. 



(6) The mvstery of the fishermen never catching a ripe 

 fish in their gill- nets is solved. It has been unquestionably a 

 mystery why female sturgeon were caught with eggs in every 

 possible stage of unripeness, but never with eggs entirely ripe. 

 It is a mystery no longer, however. The secret of it all is that 

 when the fen:ale is ripe the eggs flow from her so easily that 

 when entangled in a net she throws out all her ripe eggs in her 

 struggle to escape, so that when the fisherman takes her out of 

 the net he finds only a spent fish. Mr. Green says that they 

 throw their ripe eggs so readily that even in taking a ripe female- 

 ashore from the pens, she would be likely to throw her eggs 

 before she could be quieted enough to be stripped. 



Now that this explanation of what has seemed so mysterious,. 



