COLLECTING, HATCHING AND DISTRIBUTION OF 
PIKE-PERCH: WHY THE GREAT LOSS 
OF EGGS. 
BY Sa W. DOWNING. 
T shall make no apology for this paper, more than to say that 
our worthy secretary said “‘write” at the same time giving me the 
subject upon which to write, and the paper now before you is the 
result of that writing. But you must expect nothing flowery in 
this article; I tried that once and the result was such that I am 
willing henceforth to abstain from anything in that direction, 
the incident was this: 
While in charge of the work at the Clackamas, Oregon sta- 
tion, | had occasion to visit a sub-station upon Elk creek, a 
tributary to Rogue river, and in a letter written home describing 
the Steelhead trout as seen trying to ascend the rapids, I bor- 
rowed from Quackenbos in his description of the “Golden trout” 
and wrote as follows: “The coloration is gorgeous bevond ex- 
ample, the deep purplish hue of the back and shoulders seems 
dissolved into a dreamy sheen of amethyst through which the 
inconspicuous pale lemon spots of midsummer flame out in points 
of lemon or vermillion fire, while below the lateral line, all is 
dazzling orange.” 
This was so entirely foreign to my plain way of expressing 
myself that my wife became alarmed, and in her next letter she 
said, “When I commenced reading your letter, I thought that you 
were describing a fish, but before I finished was not sure whether 
it was fish, a bird of Paradise or a rainbow, and I think that 
you had better come home at once, or use some other brand of 
liquor.” This was enough for me, and I determined right there 
that from that time all my writing should be in the plainest 
language possible. 
So I will endeavor in my weak way to first describe the man- 
ner of collecting the eggs. 
The eggs collected by the force sent out from the Put-in-Bay 
station are secured from the fish caught by the commercial fisher- 
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