General Discussion of Toptes. I15 
his experience that eggs put in soft-water will not stand as 
much as those placed in hard water. 
Mr. Green: My opinion on the subject is from one of 
our men who has charge of the hatching in Greene county. 
He took a great many eggs in that county last fall, and 
took a great many from our state. The eggs from Greene 
county were all from soft-water. The water the spawn was 
taken from was soft-water. His experience showed that 
the eggs taken from the fish in the soft-water were very 
much thinner than those taken from the hard-water—that 
is, from the lime-water, and I am of the opinion that they 
will not bear transportation as well. The soft-water fish 
will not bear the transportation that the hard-water fish will. 
When you come to ship the eggs, the advantage would be 
very much in favor of the hard-water trout. By hard-water, 
I mean any water impregnated with lime. 
Mr. Pace described an establishment for hatching the 
salmo fontinalis at Rangely Lake, Maine. Trout had been 
taken with the- fly during the spawning-season ; also, that a 
large number of the blue-black trout and their eggs had 
been distributed through Maine. The fact is of great in- 
terest, as it is the first establishment of a permanent hatch- 
‘ing-house for the purpose of propagating that species of the 
salmo fontinalis, or of that variety which, I believe, is now 
admitted to be the largest known in the world. The nine- 
and-a-half-pound trout from the Rangely Lake was sent to the 
Smithsonian Institute. If it reached Professor Baird, I think it 
will be on record as the second largest trout known. The 
largest was that of ten pounds, taken in 1867 in the same 
water, 
Mr. Marner: Mr. Page stated that the trout had been 
