316 Third Annual Report of the 



trout, 3,000 rainbow trout; Delaware hatchery, 4,950 brook trout, 

 ranging from fingerlings to 3 years old ; Linlithgo, 120 black bass, 

 50 calico bass. 



The money value of the fish distributed in 1913 was at least 

 $250,000, not including the brood stock. 



The experiment in propagating short-nosed sturgeon in ponds 

 at Linlithgo will be discontinued, owing to the fact that, although 

 the fish evidently spawn in the ponds, no fry have yet been dis- 

 covered. It is probable that the sturgeon matures only a few 

 eggs at a time, and that the fry, if any develop, are destroyed by 

 other inhabitants of the pond which it is impossible to exclude. 

 There is no difficulty whatever in keeping the sturgeon alive, and 

 in good condition; but the only feasible method of obtaining eggs 

 and milt is so cruelly destructive as to be without warrant in 

 practical fish culture. 



The rearing of shad in ponds has been remarkably successful. 

 In a pond of less than one-fifth of an acre in area the foreman of 

 the Linlithgo station raised 500,000 fingerlings in the summer of 

 1913. Many of the shad when liberated measured 4 inches in 

 length, and the only dead shad found in the pond were about a 

 dozen which were stabbed and killed by the giant waterbug, 

 Belostoma americanum . The cost of food for the number of 

 shad fingerlings mentioned was scarcely more than $20. The food 

 consisted chiefly of water meal. 



During the fiscal year, construction work was begun at the new 

 station at Ogdensburg, 1ST. Y., and preliminary surveys and ex- 

 aminations were made for the proposed hatchery in Warren 

 county. 



Experience at the two stations which propagate the small- 

 mouthed black bass demonstrates that it is very difficult to rear 

 the fry to fingerling age without serious losses and with uncertain 

 results as to the annual yield. The bass, very early in life, show 

 a partiality for moving natural food, such as insect larvae and 

 small fish. It is sometimes almost impossible to provide this 

 food in sufficient quantities to insure a rapid growth. At the 

 Linlithgo station there is an abundance of fly larvae which the 

 bass take freely, and we rear river alewives and buckeye shiners 

 (Notropis atherinoides, Raf.) in very large quantities, usually 



