REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 7l 



and commenced feeding. Beef liver chopped very fine and strained 

 through a cheese-cloth bag was given them four times a day. The 

 fry appeared healthy until May 29, when they commenced to drop 

 back in the troughs in an exhausted condition and died rapidly. This 

 was due to the rapid rise in the temperature of the water, which 

 varied from 60° to 72°. Had they been a week or ten days older 

 when the warm weather commenced it would not have affected them 

 seriously, as grayling fry were held the previous summer in warmer 

 water without loss. Plants aggregating 34,000 were made during the 

 spring in suitable waters in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 



All of the steelhead trout on hand at the beginning of the year were 

 planted in July in streams in Minnesota and Michigan. On the 17th 

 of May 100,000 eggs arrived from Clackamas, Oreg., in fine condition. 

 These commenced to hatch on the 28th, and by J une 5 a large propor- 

 tion were feeding; by the 10th all of them were taking food nicely. 

 To all appearances the steelhead trout are exceptionally hardy and 

 grow rapidly at this station, and, judging from reports received from 

 streams already stocked, are well adapted for the waters of Minnesota. 

 During the year 148,500 were planted in waters in Minnesota, Michigan, 

 and Wisconsin. 



The 100,000 brook-trout eggs received from Colorado in March were 

 hatched late in April and retained in troughs and fed until June, when 

 91,000 were planted, the total loss of eggs and fry being less than 

 9,000. At this station brook-trout fry are brined once a week from 

 the time the sac is about one-fourth absorbed until they are distributed. 



QuiNCY Station, Illinois (S. P. Bartlett, Superintendent). 



The season opened very favorably, young bass being plentiful all 

 along the shores, though the water was too high to work the over- 

 flows and ponds. When it receded it was found that the weeds and 

 grass had grown so rapidly that it would be impossible to collect from 

 some ponds which had heretofore yielded large numbers. The bass 

 handled during the summer were much larger than usual, the bulk of 

 them having been hatched the previous year. A large number of 

 adults were captured and shipped. 



Crappie were very abundant, but owing to the difficulty in trans- 

 porting these fish from the fishing-grounds to the station only a 

 limited number were handled until fall. The catch of all kinds of 

 fishes in the river has been larger than for many years, especially of 

 the commoner species, hundreds of thousands of which are saved 

 annually by the Commission. 



As a result of the season's work 36,248 yearlings and adult bass 

 were distributed, 9,260 crappie, 2,100 sun-fish, and 22 warmouth bass, 

 besides 4,480 rock bass transferred from Neosho. 



The station was reopened in June, 1900, and many thousands of 

 young fish captured, and by the close of the year there were over 

 18,000 on hand for distribution. 



