Lydell. — Fish Culture in Michigan. 185 



Since our experience of two years ago, instead of using cheese 

 cloth frames around the margin of the pond we now use any pan 

 or box partially filled with sand. This is placed in the pond and 

 the bluegills are deposited therein. They will rise three or four 

 times and settle back ; when they rise finally they swim away. Food 

 is so plentiful in the pond that they get all they want until they 

 are about three-fourths of an inch in length, when they will begin 

 to come ashore ; then we start feeding them. They will come from 

 all sections of the pond; you can see thousands of them coming 

 to get the food. 



Anyone having in mind to take up this work will find it very 

 interesting indeed. There is a great demand for bluegills in Mich- 

 igan, especially in the southern part of the state. 



Discussion. 



Mr. G. C. Leach, Washington, D. C: I would like to ask Mr. Lydell 

 if he ever tried to take bass eggs off the nest with a glass tube and hafch 

 them? 



Mr. Lydell: Yes, we took some small-mouth bass eggs in that way an'S 

 had a 75 per cent hatch. But it is not practicable. You can go on our 

 rivers and lakes where they are spawning, and at the right stage, when the 

 little fish are turning from the transparent stage to the black stage you 

 can get them with a tube and put them in your ponds and raise them. But 

 we have not had a chance to do that where we are; there are no nearby 

 streams to make it possible. Moreover, it is not as sure as the bluegill work, 

 because most of our small-mouth bass are in the rivers and if the least bit 

 of a freshet occurs you cannot see the nest. In the lakes, however, where 

 the bluegils are, you can keep them under observation from time to time 

 until they had reached the stage that you are waiting for. One season's 

 experiment will determine where they are. The tubes used were one-half 

 inch in diameter and 30 inches long. We feed clam meal and also use it as 

 fertilizer. Before the water is put in we sow about 100 pounds to a pond 

 300 feet long and 100 feet wide. 



Mr. C. O. Hayford, Hackettstown, N. J.: Do I understand Mr. Leach 

 .to ask if v/e take bass eggs off the nest and hatch them? We had three 

 or four pairs of bass spawn before we moved them from the wintering 

 ponds to the spawning ponds. When we drew these ponds to take the adult 

 bass out there were three or four nests of small-mouth eggs. We rinsed the 

 eggs off the stones into ordinary dish pans, then placed them in a Chase 

 hatching jar. We followed the same process as in the case of hatching 

 pike perch eggs, and a large percentage of them hatched. It has occurred 

 to me that we might do some work of that kind in removing eggs from the 

 reservoirs or streams. To what extent it could be carried on I do not know. 

 When the eggs were removed from the nest the embryo was just beginning 

 to show a little under the microscope. They developed more slowly in the 

 jars. 



