108 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
Some states have laws providing a closed season during the 
spawning period, others have laws prohibiting the taking of fish 
in certain localities during the spawning period, ete., all no 
doubt intended to work the best results toward the perpetuation 
of the fishing industry and the supply of food fish for the com- 
monwealth. 
Let us first examine the merits of the closed season for white- 
fish. If the whitefish like the basses, sunfishes and some others, 
were nest builders, paired and fertilized a large per cent of their 
eggs, and then cared for them until they hatched, and then pro- 
tected their young until the fry could care for themselves, then 
the closed season would no doubt work to the best advantage and 
accomplish all that is expected of it. 
But such is not the case, on the contrary the whitefish is what 
may be termed a school spawner, swimming over the shoals in 
schools or singly as the case may, and depositing their eggs hap- 
hazard regardless of whether there is a male fish within close 
proximity or not, and the logical result of this careless manner 
of procedure is, that but a very small per cent of the eggs thus 
deposited are fertilized, and as these eggs he upon the bottom 
from 128 to 150 days, it naturally follows that a great many are 
destroyed by becoming covered with silt, moss and other filth, 
and still more are lost by being eaten by other fishes, water liz- 
ards, water fowl, ete., and it is safe to say that not one per cent 
of the eggs deposited naturally produce fry, and this one per 
cent stand no better chance of living and growing to the edible 
size than those produced by the fish culturist and judiciously 
planted. 
The average number of eggs produced by each female white- 
fish is about 36,000, and the fish culturist hatches an average of 
eighty per cent, or something over 28,000 fry to the fish is pro- 
duced, while if this same fish deposits her eggs on the reefs, but 
one per cent, or 360 fry are produced, giving a difference of 
27,640 fry in favor of the fish culturist, or for every million of 
fry produced naturally, the fish culturist produces eighty mil- 
hons. 
It is however claimed by the advocates of the closed season 
that not all the fish taken upon the reefs are ripe, and that no 
eggs can be taken from the green fish, this is true and it is 
