REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 30 
from those from Mill Creek, California, and the posterior half of the 
anal fin on the ones from Rogue River. Some of the fish first marked 
were held over three weeks before being liberated, and their health 
did not seem at all affected by the mutilation. 
Experiments at the Rogue River station, in Oregon, indicate that 
green eges can best be transported over the rough roads by transfer- 
ring them to canton flannel trays before the milt has been washed 
from them. 
At the Bozeman station the superintendent continued his experi- 
ments in the artificial feeding of grayling fry. Blood was last year 
regarded as the most desirable food for young fry, and this season’s 
work has confirmed that belief. When the fry were placed in the 
nursery ponds it was observed that they picked off the small organ- 
isms lodged there, and, in imitation of the natural conditions, bunches 
of water cress dipped in blood and liver emulsion were suspended in 
the hatching troughs for the fry to feed upon. This device having 
proved fairly successful, it was adopted in the nursery ponds, which, 
being supplied with creek water, contained also small crustaceans and 
other natural food. 
At the Wytheville, Va., station some experiments have been made 
to test the merits of azotine, a stockyards preparation, in comparison 
with liver as food for trout. By way of preparation the azotine was 
mixed with wheat middlings in equal parts, cooked into a mush, and 
before feeding was pressed through a screen! The preparation is 
nutritious, but unsuited to the delicate stomachs of small fry. After 
the fish are two or three months old it appears to agree with them when 
givenalternately withliver. The experiments have not been conclusive. 
It was noticed at the Put-in Bay station that the eggs of pike perch 
which were placed on the batteries where they received the most light 
and sunshine hatched in less time than those situated in the darker 
part of the house; it was also noticed that those hatching in the shortest 
time produced the greatest percentage of fry. No direct experiment 
was made along these lines, but the difference was sufficient to attract 
the attention of the superintendent. 
It is reported by Mr. Alex. Herbster, of Put-in Bay, that a pike 
perch weighing about 8 pounds, in ripe spawning condition, was 
eaught by him with hook and line through the ice on January 14. 
The earliest previously recorded date for the spawning of pike perch 
in Lake Erie is in the month of April. 
In the striped bass work at Weldon, N. C., the smailest yield of 
eggs was 14,000 from a 3-pound fish, and the largest was 3,220,000 
from one of 50 pounds. The largest yield of eggs previously recorded 
is 2,200,000 from a fish whose weight is not given. It is reported 
that there is an early and a late run of striped bass, with color 
F. C. 1904—3 
