416 
Annual Report of the 
over the spawning-beds. Four years ago it was common to take 
from 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of fish at each trip. Now we never go 
over 500 and not unfrequently go less than 200 pounds. The lake 
is filled with nets and the fish can hardly escape.” 
The fishermen all admit that it is wrong to take fish when they 
are engaged in spawning, and if there was a law prohibiting the 
setting up of nets from the 15th of October to the 1st of April, 
they would be glad, and would most cheerfully obey it, so that the 
fish could repair to their breeding-grounds unmolested by the de¬ 
structive gill-nets. Such a law would do much good if rigidly en¬ 
forced. 
With a hatching-house close by the lake, millions of young 
white-fish and salmon-trout could be put in Lake Michigan at a 
trifling expense to the state. It is time that this work should be 
jointly undertaken by those states bordering on the great lakes; 
that is, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin should unite to 
stock Lake Michigan, and Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, 
Lake Superior. 
However, it is now fully proven that fish do not ordinarily go 
many miles from the spot where they are hatched, so that if Wis¬ 
consin were to put 5,000,000 of young fry into Lake Michigan, 
within the limits of the state, it is quite certain that she would 
reap the greater part of the harvest. This is a matter of the 
greatest importance, for the lake-fisheries involve a considerable 
% 
amount of capital, which is employed in furnishing a large stock of 
a healthful and nutritious article of diet, easily digested and rich in 
phosphates. 
We have great hopes of success in introducing some of the vari¬ 
eties of salmon into the larger inland lakes. H. F. Dousman has 
just communicated to us the interesting fact that two years ago he 
hatched for the state a lot of salmon-eggs furnished by the United 
States Fish-Commissioner, Prof. Baird. A few of the young salmon 
escaped being captured, and have since remaine'd with their little 
cousins, the speckled trout. The last of the past November, on ex¬ 
amination, he found a female salmon that gave ripe spawn; these 
eggs were fecundated by the melt of a male. So we shall have the 
remarkable instance of salmon being hatched from spawn taken 
from fish that were hatched and grown in Wisconsin. However 
unfavorable this experiment may possibly prove, we still have 
