REPORT OF THE COUMISSIOyERS xlv 



western coast did not exceed $5,000, according to the " New York Fishing Gazette." 

 December 22, 1906. 



There are several methods of hatching the eggs of the shad, the earliest being an 

 invention of the famous Seth Green, to whose work reference is made in the special 

 report of the Marine and Fisheries Department 1902* This report states, — 



The most reliable source of supply for shad spawn is on the natural spawning 

 grounds. There the fish become active towards evening, and crowd together about 

 twilight on calm nights in late May and early June, where they can be seined and 

 the spawn and milt taken by the usual process. More than the usual delicacy in 

 handling, and care in collecting must be exercised or the fragile eggs will be damaged. 

 Professors Jordan aud Evermami in a recent popular work (American Food and Game 

 Fishes) speaks of the shad's eggs as ' very smaU, semi-buoyant, and usually requiring 

 six to ten days hatching.' but as I have pointed out that while the eggs are very 

 translucent and of extreme delicacy they are really comparatively large being in fact 

 only one-quarter less in diameter than the eggs of the speckled trout, and they readily 

 hatch in June in two aud a lialf or three days, though Mr. Cheney found that they 

 hatch in three to nine days being spring spawning fish. It is essential that scales, 

 blood, mucus, &c,, be not allowed to fall into the buckets or dishes into which the eggs 

 are spawned. They have sufficient buoyancy to dance about in the water if only 

 slightly agitated, and in perfectly still water they are barely heavy enough to sink. 

 They appear to be midway between the buoyant floating eggs of marine fishes such 

 as the cod, haddock and mackerel, and the heavy demersal ova of the herring, salmon, 

 trout, &c. Perfectly clean fresh water must be used lest particles of mud cling to the 

 slightly adhesive newly spawned eggs. The hatching is carried out either in the 

 usual cylindrical hatchery jars, with the flow of water so arranged as to keep them 

 in motion, or they may be placed in flat boxes with small perforations in the bottom, 

 and fixed at an angle so as to secure a flow of v\-ater from the bottom; but only sufii- 

 ciently strong to secure their constant movement and aeration. The first successful 

 hatching box or floating tray was devised by that ever-to-be-remembered pioneer in 

 western fish-culture, the late Seth Green, Mr. Livingstone Stone has told ns how. 

 when he visited Green at Holyoke in 1S67 he found him tackling the diffictilt problem 

 of hatching shad eggs. His attempts had been a failure. ' The peculiar character of 

 the eggs, and the peculiar treatment required for them had baffled for a time even 

 his keen-sighted genius and he had in despair almost decided to give it up and return 

 home,' He persevered, however, and invented the gauze covered box. ' It was a 

 pleasant thing ' Mr. Stone has told us, ' to see the change in Green's spirits that came 

 with the first success in hatching shad. It seemed a little thing — nothing but some 

 little delicate living embryos appearing in the frail eggs that he was working over,' 

 Mr. Lyman described the arrangement, whereby Green contrived that the box should 

 float ' with one end tilted up, and the current striking the gauze bottom at an angle, 

 is deflected upwards, and makes such a boiling within as keeps the light shad eggs 

 constantly free and buoyed up. The result was a triumph. Out of 10,000 ova placed 

 in this contrivance, all but seven hatched. In spite of delays, and of the imperfect 

 means at hand for taking the fish. Green succeeded in hatching and setting free in 

 the river many millions of these tiny fry.' The small wriggling larva that bursts out 

 of the egg in 60 to 180 hours, is like all the yotmg of the herring family, indescribably 

 delicate. It is about one-third of an inch long or less than half the length of a 

 salmon, just hatched, and has all the frail characteristics of the family chipeidae to 

 which the shad belongs. 



Instead of planting these frail and delicate shad fry it has been urged that they 

 should be reared to the strong fingerUng stage. Such rearing has been long regarded 



* Professor E. E. Prince's Eeport on Shad Culture, 1902, p. 39. 



