American Fisheries Society. 59 
number; also in shipping should a great number of unfertilized 
eggs remain in the basket. The unfertilized can be removed at 
the time of the packing in the cases. 
Experiments were made as to the value of the salt solution 
in handling eggs of brook trout and lake trout without satisfac- 
tory results. 
Superintendent Stone opines that the differences in the spe- 
cific gravity of live lake trout eggs and dead ones is not suffi- 
cient to make it practicable to separate them by the use of the 
salt solution, and he adds that indications seem to show that the 
method will sueceed with brook trout eggs. 
Supt. Clark is present and you will undoubtedly wish to hear 
him tell the results of his experiments. 
Even if this labor-saving method of picking eggs is only ap- 
plicable to eggs of the Pacific Coast salmon it is still of great 
value. 
Considerable progress has been made in the past four years 
in the method of taking and fertilizing eggs of the Pacific coast 
salmon. 
An important step in this direction was when the late Clouds- 
ley Rutter discovered the use of the normal salt solution for wash- 
ing eggs before being fertilized. This was found to be very ben- 
eficial in cleaning eggs which were frequently covered with blood 
and filth under the old method of stripping. In the year 1904 
several experiments were made by the superintendent of the 
Clackamas station to test the efficacy of bleeding fish prior to 
taking the eggs and the value of this method, if any, over the 
use of the normal salt solution for washing them. ‘These experi- 
ments tended to show that the normal salt solution was unnec- 
essary but were not conclusive. 
During the past year experiments have been conducted by 
the superintendents of the Baird, Baker lake, and Clackamas 
stations and the results indicate that the normal salt solution 
is not necessary if the fish are killed and properly bled before the 
eggs are taken. 
The conclusions of the superintendent of the Baird station 
go even farther, he having decided that the quickest and best 
method is to kill the fish, take the eggs by incision in the thin 
side wall of the belly an inch or more from the fins and fertil- 
