224 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
raised forty per cent for accuracy, it being then believed that 
rockfish eggs were larger than shad eggs and fewer per quart. 
In a period of twenty-three days, from May 2 to 24, and with 
the river temperature ranging between 60 and %0 degrees, 
Fahr., twenty ripe fish were stripped, the eggs from every one of 
them being good. The wide difference in the sizes of the spawn- 
ing individuals is noteworthy. The largest of seventy and the 
smallest of three pounds weight, the average of nineteen of them 
was twenty-six pounds; five, ranging from forty to seventy, aver- 
aging fifty-five pounds; four, from twenty-three to thirty-five, 
averaging twenty-seven; seven, from ten to eighteen, averaging 
fourteen; three, from three to seven, averaging five pounds. 
Over eighty per cent were above ten pounds weight. 
The smallest yield of eggs was 14,000, from a three-pound 
fish; the largest 3,220,000, from a fifty-pounder, while the aver- 
age from the twenty fish was 684,000. On May 6, four females, 
stripped at one spawn-taking camp, with weights at fifty, forty, 
seventy and fifty pounds, severally, yielded eggs as follows: One 
fifty-pounder 3,220,000, and three others, whose product could 
not be kept separate, an aggregate of 6,440,000, the three aver- 
aging 2,150,000, while the average of the four was 2,414,000 
egos. After water-hardening there were ninety-two liquid quarts 
of eggs as the products of the fifty-pounder, and eighty-one 
seven-quart spawn-taking pans were overcrowded with the eggs 
from the four individuals. When sixty-eight of these fifteen- 
inch-diameter pans had received their quota of eggs from the 
first three fish, there was not room on the eight by sixteen scow to 
permit proper watering and their aggregate weight, of 1,000 
pounds, with that of four spawn takers, set the newly made boat 
so deep down in the water that she commenced sinking and 
would have gone down but for five hours’ constant, hard bailing 
by our cook. The transfer of the eggs to the hatchery by hand 
was slow. The distance was about 700 yards, and the lowland 
clay was as slick as glass from an all night rain and the night 
dark. 
On this night when fishermen offered the fourth spawner, 
twenty-nine pans of eggs taken from the first fish were hastily 
put into seven Seth Green boxes astern of the scow, to make 
room for the new supply. As time advanced the eggs swelled up 
