138 Thirly-niiilli Annual Meeting 



fercnt that any person standing on the edge of a jxind could distinguish 

 them. In one case the fish were much darker on the head and back, 

 with a square tail — just as square as the brook trout — and in the other 

 case the fish were much lighter, and with a decidedly forked tail, with 

 other marks such as you have mentioned as belonging to the steelhead. 

 The former were supposed to be steelheads and the latter rainbows. 

 Both fish spawn at the same time, from the latter part of November to 

 about the first of January, the water temperature lieing about 54 degrees 

 F. in the ponds. 



As regards the spawning period of the rainbow trout, I have this 

 experience to relate. Early in the 70's there was received from the 

 United States Commission a shipment of rainbow trout eggs, presumably 

 from the west. They were hatched and appeared to be all, alike. They 

 were drvidtd into two lots, one being sent to the Allentown station and 

 the other to the Corry station. The water at the Allentown station was 

 52 degrees F. and at Corry 48 degrees F. The Corry fish when they 

 reached maturity spawned in April, towards May. The fish from the 

 same lot of eggs spawned at Allentown about the first of November. 



Mr. Titcomo : What is your experience with the rainbow in Pennsyl- 

 vania waters? We have sent carloads of rainbow trout there, in re- 

 sponse to the great demand for them, and then all of a sudden the 

 anglers said they did not want rainbows. 



Mr. Meehan : I have made inquiries everywhere but I cannot find a 

 single stream in Pennsylvania where the rainl)ow or steelhead seems to 

 thrive naturally, or at least to any great extent. There were one or two 

 places where it appeared as though they were spawning naturally in a 

 stream, but investigation showed that people who were getting rainbow 

 trout for certain other streams, instead of carrying them to those 

 streams, were planting them in the stream in which we were finding 

 evidently three-year-old rainbows, two-3'^ear-old rainbows, yearling rain- 

 bows and fingerlings. I do not know of a stream in Pennsylvania 

 where rainbows seem to be spawning naturally. 



At the Allentown station we also found a very large percentage of un- 

 fertile fish every year. Today at the Bellefonte station at least 50 per 

 cent, of the males and females are barren. At the Corry hatchery the 

 percentage of fertile males and females is better, but even there many of 

 the fish are unfertile. There has been such a large percentage of un- 

 fertile rainbows at the Wayne station tliat their propagation has been 

 discontinued at that place. 



Going back to the fish at the Bellefonte station, the square-tailed fisli 

 that we have supposed to be steelheads, though nnich the same as the 

 other fish which I presumed to be rainbows, the question is, what arc 

 they if not steelheads? 



I have a mounted specimen of a fisli caught in an Erie County stream, 

 said to be a steelhead trout, that weighs ten pounds. The fish had a 

 square tail and other alleged marks of a steelhead. There was also 

 another specimen of the same species taken from Lake Giles in Pike 

 County, but it was destroyed by fire last year. 



