THE STRIPED BASS 



Rate of Growth and Size Reached 



This giant among the game-fishes starts from a 

 very small egg. Last year Mr. S. G. Worth, 

 of the United States Fisheries Bureau, recorded 

 35,000 eggs as the number in a United States 

 standard liquid quart. The egg is therefore smalle 

 than that of the shad, which is about an eighth o 

 an inch in diameter before fertilization. The devel- 

 opment of the egg in water at a suitable tempera- 

 ture is very rapid. Mr. Worth states that the 

 embryo four hours old is about three sixteenths of 

 an inch in length. When four days old the young 

 are about a quarter of an inch in length, and at 

 four weeks measure about half an inch. Dr. C. C. 

 Abbott found young bass about one inch long in 

 the Delaware during the second week in June, and 

 by the middle of October some of them had reached 

 a length of four and a half inches. In a small pool 

 of fresh water in South Carolina some bass fed 

 upon crabs and oysters increased in about eleven 

 months from six inches to twenty inches in length. 

 In Rhode Island, bass confined in a pond grew 

 from half a pound to a pound in June, and to six 

 pounds by the following October. 



The rate of growth naturally depends chiefly 

 upon the amount of food obtainable, suitable tem- 

 perature, and quality of the water. In California, 



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