ZOOLOGY. 171 
confining salmon for breeding purposes through the summer and 
fall, it deserves some mention. It was necessary to buy live sal- 
mon of the fishermen near Bucksport in the early part of the sum- 
mer, because later in the season they are scattered ovr the head 
waters of the river in the wilderness. It was found that in com- 
mon brook, river, or pond water of sufficient depth and flow, the sal- 
mon would remain in perfect health from June till November. A 
pond specially prepared for them in a very clear, cold brook proved 
unsuitable, and every salmon placed there died. The seventeen 
fish that remained at hand in the beginning of the spawning sea- 
Son were kept in a pound built of stakes and nets on the margin 
of a large pond. The area enclosed was some fifteen or twenty 
square rods, and the depth of water about six feet at the deepest 
point. Confinement within this narrow enclosure does not appear 
to have hindered in the least the development of the spawn and 
milt. Ten out of the seventeen were found to be females and nine 
of them yielded eggs freely. The method of fecundation differed 
from that commonly employed, in that the eggs and milt were care- 
fully kept from water until they had come in contact. This meth- 
: od is of Russian vrigin. It was in this case remarkably successful. 
About ninety-six per cent. of the eggs were fecundated. They 
Were taken between the 2d and 10th of November, and on Dee. 
18th they were packed up, to the number of seventy thousand, 
five hundred, and distributed in nearly equal proportions to the 
three States of Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut. 
The conditions under which the seventeen salmon were kept 
_ Preclude the idea that they could obtain any considerable amount 
Of food, and there is no good reason for thinking that they ate 
muting at all after they were brought from the salt water in 
: which they were caught. They slowly fell away in flesh, and at 
as the Spawning season were very gaunt, compared with their condi- 
- tion in June. More noteworthy was their change in color and 
: 
i 
et eS age eee T Fa Se a OIE yer Bere ey 
x 
shape. In color they were darker, with clusters of red spots on 
* head, 
back ™m Was very marked. The sides were flat and broad, the 
= arched high, the head seemed disproportionately largé, the 
w 
