THE GAME BREEDER 185 



THE PROPAGATION OF GAME FISHES. 



An After Dinner Talk to The Game Conservation Society, at Hotel 



Astor, New York City. 



J. W. TiTCOMB. 



I feel highly honored to be invited to kind of service until maturity, and all 



address the members of a Society the the rest of them are wasted. To illus- 



aim of which is to produce more game, trate more specifically how this waste 



As the "proof of the pudding is in the occurs, let us follow the spawning habits 



eating," so have you at this banquet fur- of the brook trout. 



nished proof that your society has ac- Along the latter part of the summer 



complished results. The subject upon the native trout gather in schools. Some 



which I have been requested to talk may of them spawn around the shores of 



be regarded by many as a dry one, not- ponds inhabited by them, but more often 



withstanding the fact that it relates to they frequent the streams tributary to 



aquatic life. Your invitation indicates such ponds. If living in a stream, they 



that you are interested not only in "more will ascend to its source or into small 



game," but also in "more §ame fish." spring fed tributaries. They usually run 



With so much talent to address you I on high water following a heavy rain, 



shall be brief, touching only the high Sometimes they begin to school in 



places. August, but they seldom if ever spawn 



The intensive cultivation of fishes in before the latter part of September, and 

 ponds was practiced a great many cen- the spawning season extends into No- 

 taries ago. The manipulation of fishes vember and December, or sometimes 

 to obtain their eggs and milt is not so even later. Often when spawning in 

 old, but has been so perfected during the ponds they, do not appear on the beds 

 past century that it is only a matter of until the ice has formed. The actual 

 finance as to the numbers of many de- time of spawning. is determined hy the 

 sirable game fishes which may be pro- temperature of the water, the native 

 duced. trout spawning on a falling temperature. 



The conservation of fishes by artificial Almost all, if not quite all, the species 



propagation attracted the . attention of of fish are guided in the actual time of 



States and of the Federal Government spawning by the temperature of the 



long before the conservation of game, was water, the "spring spawners," like the 



seriously thought of, and, perhaps, this rainbow trout, spawning on a rising tem- 



accounts for the fact that more rapid perature, while the "fall spawners," as 



strides have been made, and that there we call them, instinctively seek the 



has been more general interest in the spawning beds as the temperature of 



prop.ogation of fishes than in the propa- the water drops with approaching cold 



gation. of.. game. Then, too, nature has weather of autumn, 



been more lavish with reference to the Let us follow one pair of trout after 



productivity of fishes, as compared with they have left the pond and are ready 



terrestrial animals. For example, a to spawn. Having ascended the stream, 



trout or salmon may lay anywhere from they finally select a pool with a gravelly 



100 to 5,000 eggs annually; a black blass bottom, and there conduct their court- 



from 2,000 to 10,000 eggs, and more ship. The male fights off all intruders 



than nine million eggs have been counted and usually has a number of encounters 



from one codfish. with other male trout. As the season 



On the theory that in nature like pro- approaches when th>. water temperature 



duces like, none of these fishes is ex- is favorable, the fish "make tracks" as 



pected to reproduce more than one of its it is called by rubbing over the gravel 



