FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 335 



Fertilizing Trout Eggs 



Mr. A. A. Townsend, of Salisbury, N. Y., has a system of fertilizing trout 

 eggs which he says gives very good results. His explanation is as follows: 



' Take a flour barrel, make a thin funnel the size of the top of the barrel ; 

 have it run down into the barrel fourteen inches, tapering it down to a one- 

 half inch hole at the bottom. Cut a hole in the side of the barrel, so you 

 can get a pint dipper under the end of the funnel. A board can be placed 

 in the barrel for the dipper to rest on. Then take the eggs and milt in the 

 funnel and they will run down into the dipper. When the dipper is three- 

 fourths full, take it out and stir the contents lightly with your finger, then 

 set it on one side and put one more dipper under the end of the funnel, 

 making two dippers in all. When the second dipper is three-fourths full, 

 empty the first one in a pail, take the second one out and put the empty 

 one back, and so on. Paint the funnel and the dippers with asphaltum 

 varnish." 



In this way, Mr. Townsend claims, that 20 per cent more of the eggs 

 can be fertilized than by the use of pans in the ordinary way. 



Hatching Buoyant Eggs 



At Montauk, in the spring of 1909, Foreman Walters used floating 

 boxes formerly employed in hatching shad for the care of the eggs of sea 

 bass and lobsters. A great many sea bass eggs were obtained, but they 

 could not be kept in the boxes during rough weather. The eggs are semi- 

 bouyant and the fry, according to Mr. Walters, will go through a screen of 

 32 wires to the inch. 



Mr. Walters succeded in hatching over 7,000,000 lobsters and 792,200 

 sea bass in this crude apparatus. With the use of modern appliances and a 

 amall auxiliary station at Montauk the output of fry of important marine 

 species could be enormously increased. 



Difficulties in Hatching Eggs 



In January of 1909, Foreman Annin, at the Delaware Station, suffered 

 a great deal of annoyance from heavy rains which raised the brook to a very 



