156 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
(Preliminary to reading of Mr. Lydell’s paper.) 
Mr. Seymour Bower: I wish to say that Mr. Lydell does not 
claim that this short article rises to the dignity of a formal 
paper. It is merely a few scattering notes hastily thrown to- 
gether at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute. 
(Speaking, after reading first paragraph. ) 
The Michigan Fish Commission has recently established a 
new bass station at Drayton Plains. It is not at present very 
far advanced towards completion, but from this station we dis- 
tributed this season about 165,000 advanced fry and fingerlings, 
mostly large-mouth, in addition to the output from Mill Creek. 
And right here I desire to explain how we grade our fish, what 
we mean by fry, fingerlings, ete. 
A. By fry we mean fish that have just risen from the bed; 
that is, they have risen up so that they are going to remain up, 
and have not taken any food, or practically none. 
B. By advanced fry we mean fish three-fourth to one and 
one-fourth inches in length regardless of age. 
C. By baby fingerlings we mean fish one and one-fourth to 
two inches in length, also regardless of age. 
D. By fingerlings we mean fish two inches long up to what- 
ever size they may attain at the end of the shipping season. 
(At the conclusion of the paper.) In this connection I want 
to call attention to one or two bottles of specimens that we 
brought here. You will probably all look at them before we ad- 
journ. 
Here is a bottle of fish that I wish you would all look at, be- 
cause they are all of an age—we know that—we drew the pond 
this spring and prepared it for a nursery pond, and no fish were 
put in there, adult or small, except 50,000 small-mouthed fry. 
At the age of sixty-five days these specimens, representing ex- 
tremes, show the disparity in growth. Some specimens will 
weigh fifty times as much as others of exactly the same age! Of 
course that pond was overstocked, undoubtedly, but it shows 
what a great difference there is in the growth. 
