American Fislierics Societij 105 



iiR't with failure. 1 have half a dozen fish whieh reached s])a\vii- 

 ing size out of four thousand. 1 think Mr. xVtkins can say some- 

 thing ahout his efforts to domesticate the Atlantic salmon. 1 

 think they were not much more successful than mine. 



Last year after a talk with Dr. Smith and Mr. Bowers of 

 the Bureau of Fisheries, we made a trial with the silver- 

 sides, it l)eing a fish that s])awned ])iesunu\hly al)out the same 

 latitude as the Atlantic salmon. We received some 90,000 or 

 100.000 eggs, and from the eggs we hatched the fish at our 

 Wayne station, ])) anted a large percentage of them in the streams, 

 and tliey are at present doing as well as could he ex])ected in 

 those streams with the low condition of the water due to the 

 drought. We have saved a numher of the silverside salmon in 

 the endeavor to demesticate tlu'iii. and I have here a hottle con- 

 taining a specimen of the silverside salmon which we have reared 

 and which were hatched this season. These fish are l>ut a few 

 months old. (Specimen e.\]iil)ited. ) 



They feed as well as the l)rook ti'out and there seems to ])e no 

 reason why we should not now raise those fish to nuiture size. 

 Whether or not we can succees in estahlisliing them in the Dela- 

 ware is another question, hut I have ho])es from the character 

 and size of the fish whicli we ai'e now rearing that we may ho 

 ahie to do so. 



Mr. Charles G. Atkins: As ^Ir. Meehan suggests, we have 

 at the Craig Brook station tried the experiment several times of 

 domesticating the Atlantic salmon, that is, domesticating them 

 to fresh water, and we have each time succeeded in getting them 

 u]) to the s])awning age and getting eggs from them, l)ut they 

 did not grow full size. Instead of growing to ten or fifteen 

 pounds in size they were only three and four — the largest of 

 them — and not apparently in very good condition; and the eggs 

 that we ohtained from them and the young hatched from them 

 were of inferior quality. It is (piite possihle that the inferior 

 (piality may have l)een owing to faulty feeding. Perhaps we 

 fed tlieni on the wrong matei'ial. and if we had had the hest 

 material to feed them on, such as live insects or fishes, or some- 

 thing of that sort, it is quite ])ossil)le we might have produced 

 good eggs and good offspring from those salmon, hut as it was 

 it was not satisfactorv, and there did not seem to he anv oldect 



