192 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt IVater. 



third year, at 6^ pounds, 260 pounds, and in the fourth 

 year, at 10 pounds, 400 pounds of fish — making nearly 

 half a ton of fish to grow his beastly carcass, worth one 

 dollar in the market. Their digestion has been com- 

 pared to the action of fire, and 3 pounds of fish per day 

 for a lo-pound pike would be a light luncheon. The 

 States of New York and Wisconsin breed the masca- 

 longe, but why not the pike and the pickerel {Esox re- 

 ticulatus) as well? 



I don't know that pickerel have been bred. In 1875 

 Mort. Locke and I took some spawning pike, and he 

 suggested that I hatch some. I impregnated about 2,000 

 eggs, put them in damp moss and took them to my 

 hatchery. They were too light to remain in the troughs, 

 and I made a box like Green's shad box and put them 

 in a stream below. They hatched in seven days, some 

 500 of them, and I then threw them up on land. 



When the State of New York began hatching mas- 

 calonge at Chautauqua lake the men had an idea that 

 the eggs must be at the bottom of the lake, and made 

 boxes with double wire top and bottom, to prevent small 

 fish from nibbling any heads or tails that might work 

 through, but now they use hatching jars. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



SHAD (Clupea sapidissima) . 



This is the finest of the herring family for the table, 

 but the most important, by reason of its numbers, is 



