12 EEPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



" School Spawner," approaching the spawning beds either singly or in 

 schools, the female voiding her eggs irrespective of the proximity or 

 otherwise of a male fish. The life of an unfertilized egg in the water is 

 held to be exceedingly short, and it would appear to be a fair presump- 

 tion that the same would equally apply to the germ contained in the milt 

 of the male fish. The average number of eggs produced by the female 

 whitefish is computed at approximately 35,000, assuming that the nor- 

 mal weight of the average commercial female whitefish is 2i/^ to 3 lbs., 

 but the larger the fish grows, the more eggs she will usually produce, as 

 many as 150,000 having been taken from a fish weighing eleven pounds. 

 From the fact of the great quantities of eggs that must annually have 

 been deposited, it has been deduced that under natural conditions the 

 percentage of eggs hatched cannot have been very high, even in the days 

 before commercial fishing on a large scale had been instituted, and before 

 the -spawning beds had possibly been polluted, for the normal yearly loss 

 to swimming fish can hardly have attained such colossal proportions, 

 and, as already indicated, the depositing of the eggs in the honeycombed 

 rock affords considerable security against the ravages of enemies of the 

 eggs. Consequently, it would appear that there are considerable grounds 

 for the contention of many experts that only a very small proportion of 

 the eggs, deposited under natural conditions, become fertilized. By some 

 authorities this percentage is placed as low as one. On the other hand 

 there has never been any question as to the vast quantities of whitefish 

 that existed throughout the allotted areas in each of the Great Lakes 

 prior to the advent of commercial fishing on a large scale, and from this 

 fact alone it would not appear unreasonable to draw the conclusion that 

 nature had perfected the spawning arrangements of the whitefish suffi- 

 ciently to maintain an optimum population of them under normal con- 

 ditions, in spite of the depredations of their enemies at the various stages 

 of their lives, and in spite of the loss from other natural causes, even 

 though such provision might obviously not be sufficient to meet the tre- 

 mendous drain caused by excessive commercial fishing. The belief in the 

 efficacy of nature's arrangements is strengthened, moreover, by sundry 

 investigations which have been made as to the fertilization of the egg^ 

 of other school-spawning fish, in which it has proved exceedingly difficult 

 to find any unfertilized eggs amongst many thousands examined on the 

 spawning beds themselves, while the process of spawning was in pro- 

 gress. 



What the actual percentage of eggs which are deposited and hatched 

 under normal conditions may be, it would seem impossible at present to 

 determine, but the percentage of eggs, collected from fish ripe for spawn- 

 ing, that can be hatched under artificial conditions, has been definitely 

 ascertained; 75 per cent, is placing it at a very conservative estimate, 

 and it must further be remembered that the eggs which are taken to the 

 hatcheries are relieved of all danger from natural enemies, and the 

 devastations of silt and other filth during the process of incubation, so 



