July ! 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



S07 



The Lahgf.st Black Bass. — After we vent to press last 

 week a monster black bass of the small-month species was 

 brought in New York and shown at Mr. Blackford's, in Ful- 

 ton Market, We believe it to be the largest fish of this 

 species on record, and therefote its captor can claim to be 

 'Tligh hook" on this hsb. BtrangE to say it was not caught 

 in auy of the takes of Western New York, nor in any waters 

 which are the natural habitat of the fish, but in Lake Ron 

 konkomoon Long Island, where he was introduced only a 

 few years ago. Its captor was Mr. Herbert Seymour, of 

 Brooklyn, ami as the fish weighed seven pounds, plump, on 

 Mr. Blackford's scale? twenty four hours after it was caught; 

 we do not doubt its claim to tie an eight -pounder. Mr 

 Blackford diagnosed the fish and pronounced it a small 

 mouth. l,akc Uonkonkomo was stocked some four or five 

 years ago with both the large and small-mouth black bass, 

 f >u t no authentic records of capl urea have been made. 



Tiik Canadian Salmon Run.— New York, 

 Contrary to general expectation, the pro 



furnished an extra run of 



of very tine quality. This 



unusual deficiency, mav be 



tion to the habits of the* 



home with a party vnadi 



three remaining eighteen 



total natch was 107 fish, ' 



over twenty-two pounds. 



and condition w;is 



numerical order s 



thirty-three pounds. — An Old Hand. 



it 



Provim 



ng after some tl 



dy for those wh 



oratory beauties 



up of four for u few 



lays and the fourth 



eighiug 4.391 pound' 



The uniformity of 



rkahle. The score of 



77, 51). 89, 25=497. B 



July 18.— 

 season has 

 waters, and 



ree years of 

 i give atten- 

 . "" Leaving 

 days' sport, 



twelve, the 

 , averaging 

 size, weight 



the rods in 

 ;aviest fish, 



tgislicnltnrt. 



THE NEW YORK FISH COMMISSION. 



r PHE Rochester Post -Repress, of July IS, {jives the results of 

 i the shipments of fry from the State Hatchery at Mum- 

 font in derail, as taken from the order books of Mr. Monroe 

 A. Green. From this wo learn that there has burn sent out 



33,001 lake trout. B14.000 brook trout. 1,-lW California 

 mountain trout. 151,000 rainbow trout, and 10.0(H) hybrids, 

 which were three-fourths brook and one-fourth lake trout. 



That paper further says: 



It is a pleasure to state that the prospects now are very en- 

 couraging for the erection of new hatching houses and build- 

 ing-.- at the State hatcheries, Mumford. and that the present 

 buildings, which are ;i .ligr.-ioc to the great State, .1 New York, 

 are to be removed or destroyed entirely. The grounds are to 

 be enlarged, graded and otherwise improved. The increasing 

 business of the hatcheries demand these improvements, and at 

 once. Seven or eight years ago the hatcheries were estab- 

 lished with a small stock of fish. Through the energies of 

 those in charge it has successfully grown to its present roam- 

 moth proportions and stands at the head of the fisheries and 

 hatcheries at the world. With the improvements completed 

 the supply to the. waters of the State of fish will be increased 

 in a year a. hundredfold. State Commissioner E. M. Smith is 

 determined that these matters shall receive immediate atten- 

 tion. 



There are a number ot enemies of fish Which destroy thou- 

 sands annually along Spring Creek and in the ponds of the 

 hatcheries, viz. : snakes, blue herons and kingfishers. Monroe 

 A. Green wages a relentless war upon them, but they will 

 multiply and increase in spite of his efforts. His expertness 

 in throwing a line or fly and catching snakes was illustrated 

 yesterday in fine style. Sitting in a boat, with a light rod, 

 fine line, with a. tiny 'hook without a barb, he would make a 

 east, Avith a strong wind blowing, dropping the hook just over 

 the head of a snake, just showing out of the water, fifty feet 

 feet away, and in the twinkling of an eye the reptile would 

 be on his' way to the boat with the hook in the back of his 

 head. The fly was thrown with as much precision as the 

 majority of men would send a rifle ball. 



AMERICAN FISHCULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 



[PBOCISEDINQH OOKTCNrED.l 



Second Day. 



History op the Experiments Leading to the Develop- 

 ment, of the Automatic Fish Hatching Jar. 



BY M. M'DONAI.D. 



re. was, until a eoropara- 

 or the most part to the 

 Saltuonidai, The incuba- 

 d in troughs having the 

 vel, upon -which the eggs 

 irrent of fresh water was 



Similar experiments, looking to the sa 

 by him with the Chase jar— the form of 

 for the whitetisb work at the North 



these experiments, ho- 

 that an automatic or I 

 the complete separatic 

 it practicable, and a 

 published by li 



! result, were made 



iparatus employed 

 station. The result of 



•, led Mr. Clark to the conclusion 

 elf-picking arrangement for effecting 



n of the dead from the live eggs was 

 paper to that effect was written and 

 ... Vol.1., Bulletin of the United States 

 Fish Commission. The present method employed by him for 

 the separation of the. dead whitefish eggs is to siphon off the 

 dead eggs and such live eggs as are necessarily drawn over 

 with them, and to transfer them to what he terms "hospital 

 jars," the live eggs thus drawn being left, to fake their chances 

 with the dead. 



This mode, of treatment undoubtedly has served to diminish 

 materially the percentage of loss in the eggs thus treated by 

 him. ns in this way, by the saeriuYo of a small proportion of 

 the eggs he secures the very complete separation of all ele- 

 ments of contamination and disease from the great bulk of 

 them. 



In the spring of 1S81, being in charge of a shad -hatching 

 station on the Potomac River, and hi position to observe 

 closely the performance, of the hatching apparatus in use, the 

 question of the separatee! <>1 ice dead from (I " 1: " 



fo 



lOf 



apparatus which w 

 would be Of such si 

 practice. Knowing 

 the specific gravity 

 mined to see if I < 

 effect the separat: 



uld accomplish the purpose and which 

 ipe as to be of easy and convenient use in 

 that there was an apparent difference in 

 Of the living and the dead eggs 1 deter- 

 xdd not avail myself of this difference to 

 The first form of apparatus employed 



presented in Fig. 1.* on the blackboard. 



THE work of practical piseici 

 -- '- -.-iii period, confine 

 hatching of different-], 

 tion of the eggs was at lirst effc 

 bottom covered with a layer of 

 were placed, and over 'which , 

 allowed to flow, 



In succession followed the "grill system" of M. Coste and 

 the different decices or movable trays, now in common use 

 for handling this class of eggs. In all these various methods 

 the separation of the dead eggs from the live ones is effected 

 by means of hand-picking. The necessity for the separation, 

 although not as urgent in the case of the eggs of the Salmon- 

 idaj as in that of those eggs which develop in wanner waters 

 and in much shorter periods of time, stills entails a vast 

 amount of labor in connection with the hatching operations. 

 Although the ingenuity of our tishculturists has greatly im- 

 proved the forms of hatching apparatus for these heavy 

 eggs, yet up to a comparatively recent period no effectual 

 means'of separation other than the above indicated has been 

 found practicable. The 17. S. Fish Commission, in the devel- 

 opment of its work, had presented to it. the. necessity of deal- 

 ing with the eggs of the whitefish and the shad upon a scale 

 unprecedented in the history of tisheulture. Millions of eggs 

 were to be hatched where lisheulturists formerly handled only 

 thousands, and the old methods of hand-picking were soon 

 found to be impracticable. 



In all of the forms of apparatus for bulk hatching hereto- 

 fore devised, no adequate means' is employed for the separa- 

 tion of the dead eggs from the fiving, all, as they come from 

 the flsh. thenuirnpregnated as well as the impregnated, are 

 placed in the apparatus and remain together. 



In the case of the whitefish, and more especially in the ease 

 of the shad eggs, which run through their period of incuba- 

 tion in a much shorter time, fungus rapidly develops among 

 the dead eggs, communicates itself to the living, and large 

 numbers of them, which would otherwise reach the period of 

 ha tchiug. are destroyed. The percentage of loss produced in 

 this way is always considerable, and in many- cases leads to 

 the entire loss of the eggs undergoing incubation. The. atten- 

 tion of fish-ulrurists was early directed to the serious losses 

 thus arising, oud various experiments have been made with a 

 vi.-'.v .), e.ffeeting the separation of the dead from the living 



k 'fn 187SMr. F. N. Clark, the superintendent of the United 

 States Hatchery, at Northville, Mich., attempted to effect the 

 separation by introducing a gate into one side of the Bell and 

 Mather com-, through which the shells and fish and dec 

 inighr, gooui into appropriate receptacles. This dm 

 far as it -..- -rv..-...l for the collection of the young fish, was quite 

 successful ; but it was not found capable of doing the work for 

 which it was first planned by Mr. Clark, and was abandoned. 



In the use of this apparatus I found that a fair separation 

 could be effected, but to accomplish this required perfect sta- 

 bility of the vessel and careful manipulation. When the barges 

 were lying quietly on the water and there was no tide swell i 

 the river the separation went on quietly, the dead eggs being 

 continually thrown off from the mass of living eggs and swept, 

 by the current over into the exit trough and carried off from 

 the apparatus. The slightest oscillation, however, of the 

 barge, produced by waves, would derange the orderly move- 

 ments of the eggs and required continual watchfulness on the 

 part of the attendant to prevent considerable losses of live 

 eggs. A second form of apparatus looking to the accomplish- 

 ment of the same result was also tried. 



The. result, with these forms of apparatus were not satisfac- 

 tory in deveiopmg a method which could fie conveniently ap- 

 plied in practice, yet they pointed the way to it. Later in the 

 spring, near the- close of ihe hatching season, at the suggestion 

 of Professor Baird and in conjunction with Professor Ryder, 

 we instituted in the basement of the Smithsonian Institution a 

 series of experiments to determine the limit of healthful re- 

 tardation of development that we could effect by lowering 

 the temperature of the. water employed. In order to subject 

 the eggs conveniently to the action of the current of cold water 

 they were placed in small, two-ounce laboratory flasks closely 

 corked, Through the, center ot the cork was passed a glass 

 tube which descended to within a short distance of the bot- 



tom of the ft 



admitted to the apparatus. 



An exit tube, the hover extrt 

 distance below the. ueek of the 

 of the water. While this form 

 by me in connection with th 

 above referred to, I had 



•hich the c 



•ent of water 



-:''l" 



unity of which extend: 

 bottle, provided for til 

 of apparatus had beei 

 3 experiments on retardath 

 fixed upon the apparat 



l the lii 



n of the 



than I felt at once I had arrived at thesoi 

 of automatic separation of the dead fron 

 eight-ounce wide mouth glass jar, such a 

 tiona] Museum for holding alcoholic spec: 

 indicated. 



In this were placed ti.000 shad eggs, and a current of water 

 turned on and regulated. The movement of the current es- 



in the Ka- 

 s fitted up as 



tablished 

 brought, each in =noi 

 mained there, form! 

 layer upon the uppe: 

 the exit tube to a sir 

 feeling the infl 



„ _jiling motion on the eggt, .. 

 in to the surface. The dead eggs re- 

 i they were freed from the mass a 

 face' of the others. By sliding down 

 e distance, I found that the dead eggs 

 e of the escaping current, were by 



degrees drifted under the lower end of the tube, lifted by the 



current, and swept out, leaving an absolutely clean mass ot 

 live eggs. 



This lot of eggs was successfully hatched, and at the period 

 ot hatching not a dead egg was found in the bottle; nor do 1 

 think a live egg was lost inthewhol course,ofthi i pffl 

 inent. 



The first, experiments had been trained solely with refer 

 euee to the assumed slight difference in the specific gravity of 



the living and the dead eggs. Attentive study of the move 



nient of the gag-, in ,.1, ■■ i.ir -.',.--'-.•.-. -till more potent infhi- 



It is true there is islighl difference in this respect, but it is 

 hardly appreciable. The more, important difference, and that 

 paratus depends, is the close 

 he living eggs; the effect be- 

 ing that the live eggs rolling in mas- ami always in contact, 

 even when they reach the Surface, arc by this adhesion car- 

 ried around in the regular -ou. a a movement. On the 

 other hand the dead egg* having -nee reached the surface. 

 their adhesion to the underlying layer o£ eggs is tttri sufficient 

 to draw them along with it and fa its regular movement; 

 consequently when ihev once reach tin- surface of the mass, 

 thev remain' there until thev are carried offby the exittuli-. 



Several experiments mad.- with different lots of E 

 uniformly the same Satisfactory results. 



In May", 1SSI. the apparatus was exhibited before ,-i on- 



of the Biological Soei-tv, held in the basement of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. These experiments were so decisive, that 

 1 did not hesitate to recommend and urge the adopt* In of the 



In the spring of lss:., it 'was determined to convert the old 

 armory building into what is now known as the eeutral 

 hatchery and distributing station. Prof. S. F. Baird was 

 pleased to manifest his confidence in the success of the new 

 form of hatching apparatus by authorising me to equip the 

 ofAfiAn nrifii ttam ri-»« -wrr,i-t-»»^jy fopjji of apparatus I ' i' 1 



jar complete in all de- 



ng . IS. D Aninipro- 

 : stoppers were substi- 



emploved in the form 

 planned to receive the 



off from the building 



tributton of water sup- 

 d the station equipped 



icessoj 



ido for 

 within 



itching 



3T AND 



station with them. The 



ing been then even desig 



prepare the drawings an 



tads ready in time for tl 



vised form was devised 



tuted for the screw cap. 



now fixed upon. Ten t 



waste water from the jars am 



were const meted, the pipes for the distr 



ply to the tables were introduced, and 



with M00 of the jars. Each having a I 



seventv thousand shad ■-_■;. _- -- ! 



the station of "l.nno.n -g-s at one time. 



entire shad hatching season. This was, o 

 any possible production to be looked for; 

 tion of a shad hatching station it is neei 

 the contingency of the great brdk of tin 

 an interval of a few days of each other, 

 apparatus used during the season is tigl 

 Stream of Oct. :.'o. fSsd! [and here reprint. . 



An arrangement of a hatching tame forthe collection of the 



young fish as they hatch in appropriat . .-r- m- aquaria 



was also devised.' The present form of apparatus and the 

 form contemplated in the first design, but only completed 

 recently, is shown at Mr. Blackford's. 



In this method we have a pair of jars fitted up. one for the 

 batching of the eggs, the other forthe collection of the young- 

 fish. 



The jar consist.- essentially of a cylindrical glass vessel with 

 hemispherical bottom. These are 'not Mown, but pressed, in 

 order to secure perfect regularity bf the inferior surface, upon 

 which depends to some extent the perfect working of the jar. 

 The glass foot which is shown in the improvised form has been 

 omitted in the form now m use. rho jar l.'-mg support ed upon 

 a tripod of three glass legs, this form of attachment being 

 adopted to prevent the distortion of the bottom of the jar, 

 which would necessarily result from the attachment of a 'sin- 

 gle foot to it. 



©The top of the jar is east with thread to receive s screw cap, 

 and both the bottom and the top surfaces are ground so that 

 the plane of each shall be perpendicular to the axis of the jar 

 and so that when the jar is resting upon its feet its axis shall 

 be perfectly vertical. 



These are all important considerations to secure the proper 

 working. The top of the jar is closed by a metallic disk per- 

 forated with two -Vinch holes, one perfectly central, which 

 admits the tube that introduces the water into the jar, the 

 other equally distant from the central hole and the edge of 

 the plate. A groove in the inner surface of this metallic plate 

 carries a rubber collar, and when the plate is in place the 

 tightening of the metallic screw cap, as in a fruit jar, seals 

 the opening hermetically. Both the inlet and outlet, tubes 

 pass through stuffing boxes, by which means the tubes can lie 

 -■lid up and down easily and tightened firmly in any position 

 we wish them to remain. The construction of the ft r is such 

 that when the metallic disk is in place the central tube takes 



hi ami,; a. j-,.i;n, ,, ii • ■:--. li'dv b I " -VI da. i li- - -lve, o;,p 



of the stuffing box we can slide the central tube up or down so 

 as In das,ai-a,iiia jn-a such movement of lie- rges as we desire. 

 If the quantity of water entering be small, or the head of wa- 

 fer slight, without changing the feed of water we may vary 

 at our will the force and velocity with which it enters the far. 

 Bv pushing the tube down so as to bo almost, in eoutuct with 

 the. bottom of the jar we make a relatively small quantity of 

 water do the work of a large ouantit J iu prodncaig motion. 

 Moreover, as in the period of hatching of the shad, a full sup- 

 ply of water is needed and not a great deal of motion, we niav 

 seeure this by increasing the feed and raising the lower cud 

 of the central or supply tube, so that the delivery of the water 

 , i ii will be under less pressure. Tins eeutral tube is eon, 

 , . 1 by a rubber pipe with the pet cock which furnishes a 



The exit tube servos a double purpose. First, as an outlet 



forthe water, and secondly, at our pleasure to remove the 

 layer of dead eggs from the surface. This is accomplished at 

 stated intervals— once in twenty -four hours— by loosening the 

 screw of the stuffing box so that the tube will slide readily, 

 pushing it down until the dead eggs nearest to the lower old 

 arc seen to begin to pass off. By allowing it to remain in this 

 position for a few minutes the" layer of dead eggs is swept 

 oil' entirely. They may be allowed to pass off in thee, ,■■ ti- 

 er, better, collected by screens and ted to the lish in tin 

 aquaria, thus serving the double purpose of preventing ■ 

 fouling of the water and furnishing a very appropriate food 

 for many varieties of fish. When the period of hatching up- 

 proaches, instead of allowing the water from the hatching 

 jars to pass directly into the sinks, it is 

 it through tie. oollc.-lil, ' ic.l. This is pi 



ssary to conduct 



unit eseae.es from 

 circuit float high. 



current, mav Lie sa 

 escaping water, 



The surface of this strainer should be a- large as is conve- 

 nient It is adjusted to the lower end of the central fu i .,- m 

 such position Utif the end of the tube is as nearly convenient 

 in the center of the. wire cage, the object of this being to make 

 the draw of the water equal in all directions. The u ,n r 

 allowed to pass out of this second receiving jar out into the 



waste. TheyoUng fish, it they be whitefish or -laidt. a 



,,.-. 1 1 .--, burst the shell, begin to swim around rigorously in 

 the hatching jar, drifting with the current, They pass 

 I the exit tube and are earned over into the receiver, in which 



