Adhesive Eggs. 237 



part of the water at intervals of five or ten minutes 

 and adding fresh water. This is continued for an 

 hour, or until the eggs become hard and will not stick. 

 They are then placed in boxes, similar to shad boxes, 

 and set in the current of the river, where they are 

 kept from one to six days, or until convenient to ship 

 them to the hatchery. In shipping the eggs, they are 

 placed on wire trays and put in boxes, which are large 

 enough to permit two inches of crushed ice to be 

 packed on every side. We also put crushed ice on 

 the top tray. Our trays are made of galvanized wire- 

 cloth. Most hatcheries use flannel cloth on the trays. 

 We have discarded the flannel-covered trays, as we be- 

 lieve the wire-cloth is preferable for the reason that 

 they are more durable, the water drips through the 

 wire more readily than flannel, and a better circula- 

 tion is provided. When the eggs are received at the 

 hatchery they are taken from the shipping boxes and 

 run through a wire screen with a mesh just large 

 enough for a single egg to pass through at a time. 

 This screening removes all scales or dirt from the 

 eggs. They are then put in hatching jars, and they 

 work as freely as the eggs of the whitefish. 



We have used muck and clay in our eggs to prevent 

 adhesion since the spring of 1884. This method of 

 preventing adhesion of the eggs was discovered by us 

 accidentally. We were having the usual trouble with 

 our pike eggs, and they were badly bunched up in the 

 jars. One day it became necessary for the city to re- 

 pair the water main which supplied our hatchery. As 

 a result we had a flow of roily water for several hours. 

 After the roily water had cleared off it was evident 

 that our eggs were working much better. This set us 

 to experimenting. We procured some earth, took our 



