180 First Annual Report of the 



with the fishermen. They secured the eggs as the nets and fish 

 came on board of the boat. Weather conditions often make it 

 difficult to procure and treat the eggs satisfactorily A total of 

 37,875,000 eggs was obtained, nearly filling the hatching capacity. 

 Thanks are due the Desmond Fish Company, of Dunkirk, for 

 the use of their tugs and for able assistance. 



Collection of maskalonge eggs in Chautauqua lake commenced 

 April 22 and ended May 14, 1911. Eleven pound nets were used 

 in this work, making a record take of 10,668,000 eggs. Eight 

 million six hundred thousand fry were hatched and planted from 

 this collection of eggs. 



Through the courtesy of Mr. George Rappole a small plot of 

 ground adapted to the building of two small temporary ponds 

 for experiment with spawning black bass in artesian water was 

 placed at our disposal. Twenty-four adult black bass were 

 taken from the lake a short time before they were ready to spawn 

 and placed in one of these ponds, proper nests having been pro- 

 vided. For the purpose of raising the temperature as much as 

 possible the artesian water was run through 100 feet of open 

 trough before emptying into the pond. The temperature of this 

 water as it flows out of the well is 48 degrees. During warm, 

 sunny days the pond temperature would rise to about 70 degrees, 

 but would drop back nearly to normal during nights and cloudy, 

 cool days. The bass were left in the pond from three to four 

 weeks and at times they would work a little on the beds, but none 

 of them ever spawned. At the end of this time I opened one of 

 the female bass and found that the eggs were what we term 

 " caked " and that the fish would not spawn. I then returned 

 the remaining bass to the lake. 



I put about 1,000 maskalonge fry in the other pond, and they 

 all died in a few days. We then collected about 18,000 black 

 bass fry from the shore of the lake, in front of the hatchery, and 

 placed them in this pond. By feeding them small minnow fry, 

 just hatched, the young bass did well ; but as we were unable to 

 furnish sufficient food for them, a majority were returned to the 

 lake in about ten days. The few remaining ones were kept for 

 fingerlings and did fairly well, but did not grow as such fish do 



