164 First Annual Report of the 



furnished for hatching troughs for the development of eggs of 

 tomcod, flatfish and any other marine food fish whose eggs can 

 be collected. 



Contruction work began in 1907 at Linlithgo Station. The 

 original intention of the Commission in establishing it was to 

 propagate shad and other river species. It was soon discovered 

 that black bass, calico bass, yellow perch and various other native 

 fish valuable for food or sport could be reared successfully in the 

 ponds. The shad season is very short, and it would not have been 

 economical to limit the work of the station to that fish. 



A hatchery was built, ponds were laid out, and supplies of eggs 

 were collected by the employees or purchased from fishermen. 

 During the first year or two it was possible to obtain only about 

 1,000,000 eggs of shad in a season; but now the number has been 

 increased to 8,000,000 or more. The eggs taken in 1911 yielded 

 more than 4,800,000 shad for planting in the Hudson, and of 

 these 100,000 were fingerling fish, many of them four inches long. 

 Shad rearing operations have been conducted here for several 

 years; but never upon a great scale because of limited area at 

 present for ponds. The method of pond rearing was abandoned 

 long ago by the United States Bureau of Fisheries, and has gone 

 into decadence in Connecticut. It is easy enough to rear the shad, 

 and the cost of the experiment is small ; but the outlay for neces- 

 sary ponds, say for rearing a million fingerlings, would be too 

 great for the present appropriations. 



The ponds containing brood bass proved very successful this 

 year. There was no mortality in the wintering ponds, and the 

 supply of natural food for the adult and young bass is so abun- 

 dant at Linlithgo as to make bass culture there very profitable. 



This station has furnished nearly 500,000 brook trout fry 

 annually since the completion of the hatchery. It bas not been 

 possible to rear trout to fingerling size, because the creek water 

 supplying the rearing troughs and ponds becomes too warm in 

 late spring to sustain trout life. To remedy this situation a well 

 was sunk close to the hatchery. This well was completed June 

 23d, at a depth of seventy-five feet, and with an ordinary well 

 digger's pump fifteen gallons of water per minute were taken 

 without diminishing the level of the well. The temperature of 



