American I-is/icrics Society. j-j; 



Mr. Ravcnc! : In othor words, to have the sturgeon when 

 ripe. 



Tlie President : I don't understand wh\- Mr. Stone (hchi't get 

 more sturgeon on the hd<e. I will tell yon why he made the failure 

 last year, was that he didn't go to the river until the sturgeon had 

 gone up and eonie back. The first he got word of it the sturgeon 

 were returning from the Missiquoi river. They go up this same 

 river every year to spawn. 



Air. Ravenel : Those that he caught had spawned. 



The President : Well, they had some spawn in them, but my 

 inference is that those fish had deposited most of their spawn and 

 gone back. We can name \ou within two weeks of the 

 time that the sturgeon will go into the Alissiquoi river; also the 

 Winooski river, flowing into Lake Champlain. There won't be 

 many of them but will weigh from 50 to 200 pounds. 



The Secretary : I think one reason why they thotight some 

 of those fish were spent is, that sturgeon probably spawn but once 

 in two years. I am satisfied that some of the rainbow trout at our 

 Paris station spawn but once in t\vo years, and the Atlantic salmon 

 are said to spawn only once in two years. Last year a scientist 

 from the University of Michigan made some experiments with 

 sturgeon on the south side of Lake St. Clair, near the head of the 

 Detroit river. He was there for weeks, l)ut had little or no suc- 

 cess in taking eggs and fertilizing them ; and while he did not 

 come out and say that they spawned but once in two years, he 

 intiinated to me that this was quite possible, if not probable. 



In 1893, the Michigan Fish Commission hatched upwards of 

 400,000 sturgeon, and in 1894 over 100,000. One of the difificul- 

 ties we met was that the sexes did not run together to any extent ; 

 the catch at any given time was either nearly all males or nearly all 

 females. At one point on the river a seine fishery was run by 

 private parties, who held the sturgeon in crates for a day or two — 

 none longer than two days. I distinctly remember on one occasion 

 of a number of ripe females being taken from the crates, the spawn 

 running out freely as the fish were dragged along over the dock, 

 but there wasn't a single male on hand to fertilize them with. 



