62 Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting. 
eges are placed in ten-gallon buckets—from 40,000 to 50,000 
to a bucket—and allowed to remain absolutely quiet until they 
become free. This precaution is necessary, as they are very 

tender during the adhesive stage. 
Formerly it was the custom to build the spawning and the 
washing platforms adjoining each other, but now the washing 
platform is placed at a distance from. the other, and the loss in 
egos ranges from five to ten per cent less. 
Directions were issued to the superintendent on the Pacific 
Coast to examine the spawning beds of salmon, to ascertain if 
possible the percentage of fertilization under natural conditions. 
The superintendent of Baker Lake station secured 355 eggs of 
the blueback salmon from a spawning bed in the upper Baker 
tiver, and out of this number 51 were found to contain embryos. 
Later in the season he visited the same beds but was unable to 
secure eggs, many of the beds being covered to a depth of from 
one to three feet, with sand and gravel which had washed in upon 
them during high water and after the fish had spawned. 
The reports from the superintendent of Clackamas and his 
assistants at the various field stations are somewhat conflicting, 
but the general inference is that a large percentage of eggs are 
fertilized and that only a small percentage hatch. Superintend- 
ent Wallich describes his observations of a male salmon in the 
act of emitting milt on a large spawning bed with many other 
salmon of both sexes. He continues by saying “The milt 
seems to come out like a flash and almost instantly spread out 
covering an area of from one half to one yard in diameter. It 
produced a pronounced milky hue which vanished rapidly as it 
floated down stream and became still further minutely divided. 
Since that time I have never observed a male and female in 
the successful act of natural propagation, though I have observed 
female salmon many times in the evolutions that tend to relieve 
them of their eggs.” 
The superintendent of Baird station feels that a larger per- 
centage of eggs were fertilized than the reports from the Clack- 
amas station show. It is believed that the report of his obser- 
vations will be of interest, and it is as follows: “The clean 
eravel or stones in the bottom of the creek, usually called the 
nest or bed, is the point where the female deposits her eggs. It 
