Conservation Commission. 263 



Smelt. 



The smelt are likely to come into the Long Island streams to 

 spawn any time in March. According to Foreman AY alters, they 

 appear with a rash and leave as suddenly. Sometimes they do 

 not ascend the creek near the Cold Spring Harbor station nntil 

 the very night when spawning begins. During some seasons the 

 fish are very small, and again the runs will be composed of very 

 large individuals. In some years great masses of eggs can be 

 scooped up from the creek. The work with this fish is very ex- 

 hausting as spawning takes place only at ,night, and the men are 

 kept at work almost every night while the season lasts. 



The fry cannot be confined by ordinary screens ; they will some- 

 times escape through bags made of Victoria lawn. The eggs are 

 so extremely adhesive that they must be forced repeatedly through 

 fine screens to break off the footstalk before they will separate in 

 the jars, and even after they have been in the jars for sometime 

 they may stick together in bunches and make it necessary to rub 

 them through screens several times before they will work properly. 

 The process does not appear to hurt the eggs in any way. The 

 percentage of fry from fertilized eggs is very large. For long 

 distance shipments, it is always advisable to send eyed eggs near 

 the hatching point, as the fry soon absorb the yolk sac after 

 they have burst out of the shell. 



Pike. 



The Commission is indebted to E. B. Gardner, of Elmira, for 

 the following information about the stocking of Eldridge lake, 

 Chemung county, with pike. Under date of February 11, 1911, 

 he says : " A friend of mine was at Eldridge lake the other day 

 fishing through the ice, and caught a pike weighing five pounds. 

 I had a photograph made of it to send to you. The pike were 

 brought here and put in this lake about 18 years ago by Spencer 

 Afead, who w T as then superintendent of the N". C. E. R. He 

 brought them from Sodus Bay in cans sunk in the water tank of 

 the engine. A gentleman caught one this fall while casting from 

 the shore with a large minnow. The pike weighed eight pounds. 

 Several have been caught this winter through the ice, but there is 

 so much food in the shape of smaller fish that it is a long time 



