226 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
eggs in the forty-hour period, were killed on the metal screens, 
within two hours of hatching. There was no remedy applicable. 
I immediately set to work, however, and had cheese cloth strain- 
ers made, and on using them solved to entire satisfaction the 
problem of aquaria strainers. 
The fry display an inordinate propensity to escape. In feath- 
ering them off of the metal screens the sacs of great numbers 
were ruptured, flooding the aquaria water surfaces with oil. 
While the newly taken and unfertilized eggs are of a decided 
and highly attractive green color, the oil from the fry sacs is 
amber. During the heavy mortality of May 8, there were 
myriads of the buoyant oil globules afloat from the minutest 
size up to nearly one inch in diameter. 
From the very small size of the four-hour-old fry, about 
three-sixteenths of an inch long, which I here exhibit, it is obvi- 
ous that it would require the bursting of many sacs to afford the 
pronounced effect in oil globules described. The four-day-old 
specimens, here displayed, about one-fourth inch long, represent 
the approximate size of 3,698,000 fry deposited in the Roanoke 
river, that number being the season’s output. The four-weeks- 
old specimens, about one-half inch long, were reared in a crudely 
constructed pool near the hatchery door. Their fins are easily 
discernible, and when they were being introduced into the vial, 
the stripes down their sides could be seen. I do not think that 
partial rearing in ponds could be other than successful, as the 
water in the temporary pool at Weldon was of very high temper- 
ature and almost stagnant. 
The run of adult fish at Weldon, from unknown causes, was 
the smallest ever known. J. E. Moody, in twenty-one seasons, 
during some of which he did not fish the spring through, aver- 
aged 847 fish with sales $298.38, but got this year only 227 fish 
which sold for $82.40, all other “drag-netters” faring as bad, 
and most of them worse. 
It was learned on what was believed to be trustworthy evi- 
dence, that striped bass are annually caught in Roanoke river on 
trot lines in the vicinity of Hamilton, in commercial quantities, 
two men being able to take 200 pounds a day, or about 1,000 a 
week. Hooks are baited with fresh cut herring (alewife). Up 
at Weldon their capture with a hook is an extremely rare occur- 
rence. 
