70 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
greater than last year, and this is inexplicable, unless it was due to 
close inbreeding of the trout for the past eight years, or to the fact 
that nearly all of the trout were caught out of the small lakes early in 
the season and held in ponds in a somewhat crowded condition, and 
were injured by frequent handlings. There is no doubt that muen 
handling of the fish injures the quality of the eggs, hence the greatest 
care is exercised in collecting and in fertilizing them. 
Shipments of eyed brook-trout eggs, aggregating 410,000, were made 
to other stations of the Commission, State fish commissions, and pri- 
vate hatcheries, and with one exception they reached destination in 
excellent condition, the loss en route ranging from 33 to 600 eggs on 
shipments of 25,000. The exception referred to was a consignment 
to Tokyo, Japan, which hatched en route because the ice chamber in 
the top of the case was not kept filled with ice. 
On July 1 there were 120 three-year-old Loch Leven trout in stock, 
but 52 died during the year, and the bulk of the 2,000 fry on hand 
at that time were also lost. The only eggs of this species collected 
were 20,700, taken at Uneva Lake on November 25; of these 6,700 
died and the remainder were hatched, half the resulting fry going to 
the owner of the lake. At the close of the year there were 5,790 finger- 
lings on hand. 
The rainbow-trout work in Colorado is very discouraging, notwith- 
standing the fact that the few planted in the streams of the State by 
the Commission and the State commission have done exceptionally 
well. Nearly all of the eggs collected this year from the fish at the 
station were lost, and out of a collection of 25,000 obtained at Lake 
Loveland on March 27, only 6,000 were saved. These were shipped to 
Buffalo, reaching destination in excellent condition, and were hatched 
in the Fish Commission exhibit. In February 50,000 eggs were 
received from Manchester station and hatched with a loss of 10,000. 
During May and June 17,000 fingerlings were planted, and at the close 
of the year there were 6,795 on hand. 
The 21,400 lake trout on hand, resulting from eggs shipped from 
Northville and Duluth, were planted in suitable lakes in Colorado 
during the months of July, August, September, and October. 
The steelhead fry from eggs shipped from Rogue River, Oregon, in 
May, were planted in August and September, with a loss of only 800. 
The collection of black-spotted trout eggs continued into July, but 
at the beginning of the year there were 1,881,300 on hand. They fin- 
ished hatching early in August, with a loss of 131,800, or about 7 per 
cent, and the loss of fry up to the middle of August was 11.5 per cent. 
The owner of the Grand Mesa lakes received 310,000 fry as his share, 
and the remaining 1,231,000 were the property of the Commission; 
820,000 of these were planted in September and 360,000 in October, 
with a loss of about 4 per cent of fry, making a total loss of only about 
25 per cent on the entire collection of eggs obtained at the Grand 
Mesa lakes. 
