REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 63 



were impregnated, but segmentation had been stopped on account of 

 injury to the disc, and as this loss often runs up to one-third of the 

 whole number in the case of pike-perch eggs, it is apparent that much 

 care should be exercised in handling them up to the point where they 

 are fully cushioned with water. This view was fully sustained during 

 the season of 1899, in the case of several lots of eggs taken from the 

 boats of the fishermen in the immediate vicinity of the station and 

 manipulated with great care on the floor of the hatching-house. These 

 eggs, some twenty jars in all, yielded from 80 to 90 per cent of try, 

 and were by far the best in the house. 



Four lots of eggs were held for a short time in a weak solution of 

 common salt before applying the milt, it 1>eing maintained by some 

 biologists that the brine would tend to weaken the resistive power of 

 the egg, and that therefore more than one spermatozoon might enter 

 the micropyle. One lot was held 3 minutes in a 2^ per cent solution, 

 washed for 1 minute with several changes of water, the milt then 

 being applied. In the next lot a 5 per cent solution was used, the 

 eggs remaining in it for 3 minutes before Avashing, and with the next 

 two lots 2^ and 5 per cent solutions were employed, the eggs remain- 

 ing therein for 4 minutes. Not a twin disc was found among 2,000 

 eggs so treated and examined. 



It seems remarkable that this treatment did not appear to materially 

 injure the eggs. Only in the lots where they were held in the solu- 

 tion for a period of 4 minutes was there any perceptible difference, 

 the percentage of unfertile eggs being greater in these than in the lot 

 normally treated from which they were taken, but this was doubtless 

 owing to the length of time that elapsed between the taking and the 

 fertilizing of the eggs. 



On the 1st of April Mr. Stranahan was appointed superintendent 

 of the Bullochville station, and pending the arrival of Mr. S. W. 

 Downing, who had been appointed superintendent at Put-in Bay, 

 the pike-perch work was directed by the foreman, Mr. J. C. Fox. 

 The season was late. The ice did not disappear until the latter j)art 

 of March, and by the time the fishermen got their nets set a large 

 proportion of the fish had spawned. In fact, there was apparently no 

 run of spawning fish, only a few scattered ripe ones being found. 



As the experiment of penning pike perch had been very unsatisfac- 

 tory the previous season, it was not attempted this year. The first 

 eggs were received from the Port Clinton field on the 19th of April, and 

 the last from the same point on April 28. Spawn-takers were also 

 stationed at Monroe, Mich., Toledo, North Bass Island, and Put-in 

 Bay, the collections from all points aggregating 138,900,000 eggs. 

 These were of such poor quality that only 57,000,000 of them were eyed, 

 of which number 25,000,000 were transferred to the Michigan Fish 

 Commission, at Detroit. The balance were hatched and distributed, 

 20,500,000 being planted on the spawning-grounds in Lake Erie and 

 6,500,000 sent to applicants in Ohio and Indiana for inland lakes. 



