THE BASSES: FRES H-W ATER AND MARINE 



of the dearth of spawning-fish in our Northern 

 waters. 



Seth Green handled the eggs just as he had suc- 

 cessfully managed the shad eggs, and in floating 

 boxes with a wire screen bottom tilted at a slight 

 angle to the surface of the stream by means of 

 lateral cleats fastened on the ends of the boxes. 

 Holton carried on some preliminary work at Wei- 

 don, N. C., in 1873. The United States Fish Com- 

 mission found the ripe fish in North Carolina in 

 May, 1879; but not until last year were operations 

 successfully carried out upon a large scale, and then 

 Weldon was again the scene of the work. There 

 Mr. Worth was surprised by the suddenness of the 

 natural spawning. Out of the whole number of 

 eggs collected, aggregating more than 13,000,000, 

 about five sixths were taken in a single night (May 

 6), and upward of 3,000,000 were furnished by a 

 single female. 



The spawning females secured by Mr. Worth 

 ranged from three to fifty pounds in weight and 

 yielded from 14,000 eggs to the maximum of 

 3,220,000. The season continued from May 2 to 

 May 24, and the water temperature varied from 

 60 to 70 F. The average period of hatching was 

 forty- four hours, while Seth Green recorded eight 

 days for the same operation in the North, which 

 shows how important a part the water temperature 

 plays in the development of eggs. 



188 



