110 Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting 



a day or two after the usual period. By an agreement between 

 myself and the ISTew Jersey commissioners, we d'^cid'^d not to be 

 too strict in the operation of the nets of those gillers who had 

 l)een bringing eggs in regularly and on the 20th with the con- 

 currence of the New Jersey commission, I issued emplo mem, 

 ])ai)ers to three of tlie l)est gillers operating on what is known as 

 the Torresdale drift between the filter plant and Torresdale 

 Avharf with the intention if the experiment proved successful, to 

 continue the operation of those three nets as long as eggs could 

 l)e taken, even though it might extend into July. On Thursday 

 night, June 20th, the three gillers took perhaps 400,090 eggs, 

 but they w^ere all bad. On the 21st a like number were taken and 

 the eggs were all bad. The three giller's nets were therefore cut 

 out. We operated our own net after midnight Sunday the 23d 

 and caught two ripe shad and the eggs were worthless. Opera- 

 tions then ceased finally. 



Heferring again to the paragraph relating to the numb'r of 

 fish which were nearly ripe lacking only 24 hours at the most, 

 this fact determined me to try some experiments, one of which 

 was as I have already related, taking the most nearly ripe and 

 laying them aside with the result already noted. A second ex- 

 periment was to transfer specimens to one of the ponds in the 

 hope that the fish would ripen. Unfortunately, we had only a 

 gill net fhom which to take fish to try this experiment. The 

 dozen specimens were therefore not in the best condition all be- 

 ing more or less bruised by the twine. Of the 12 fish 11 died 

 within an hour. The 12th fish lived in the pond all night or 

 until about dawn l)ut the eggs could not be taken nor could they 

 l)e taken from any of the specimens. We then determined to try 

 holding fish in ci-ihs taken from the Page shore fishery, the near- 

 est seine to the hatchery, Init unfortunately this determination 

 was arrived at too late for the shore fishery cut out on the day we 

 secured the lumber. This experiment therefore will have to lie 

 over until next year. We had intended making a crib 12 feet 

 long, four feet wide and four feet deep of boards with space of an 

 inch to allow the water to flow through freely. Inside the box we 

 intend to set a form or box of cheese cloth so that when the fe- 

 nales were placed therein tliey could not hann themselves in their 

 frantic rushes up and down the l)ox or crib. As the question of 



