month of May he, collected fifty-four additional individuals for observation at Linlithgo.

In 1908, employees of the Pennsylvania Fisheries Commission noted that the short-nosed sturgeon in the Delaware river reached the spawning age at a very much earlier period and when of a much smaller size than was usually supposed. A number of these sturgeon were captured and placed in one of the larger ponds at the Torresdale hatchery. They were about equally divided as to sex. The majority produced either ripe eggs or milt, but neither sex ripened at the same time as the other. In the spring of 1909, a large pond was stocked with small short-nosed sturgeon ranging from a foot and a half to three feet in length. There were about five males to one female. Two females ripened at the same time as four males, and the eggs were taken. The eggs of the first female were not all ripe, and very few of the eggs were hatched. A second lot of eggs was treated differently and a good proportion of them were incubated. The result of the work conducted at Torresdale in 1909 indicated that they are not suitable for hatching by the jar method. The eggs are so heavy and glutinous that, in the first place, the jars had to be set one at every trough in order to furnish a sufficient force of water to move the eggs, and secondly, on account of their heaviness, those which fungused would not rise to the top of the jar, making screening almost impossible. It was believed by the Superintendent that much better results could be obtained by hatching the eggs on lake trout trays.

The sturgeon cannot be kept over the winter in shallow ponds. The short-nosed sturgeon at Linlithgo Station were caught in the Hudson river in the spring of 1911. On May 15th, there were fifty-seven in a pond, among them a number of gravid females. When the pond was drawn down in the fall it was discovered that the fish had spawned; but no fry were found. A few bass had accidentally got into the pond, and it is believed that they destroyed all the young fish.

The only loss of sturgeon was one fish which jumped into the outlet and remained so long out of water that it could not be revived.

The sturgeon were fed upon pond snails and crawfish, both of which are abundant at Linlithgo. They consumed the snails in very large quantities. They will also eat pieces of fresh fish, although this is probably not a natural food for the species.

One of the sturgeon was partly melanistic, the dark blotches being numerous and very large. Thirty of the fish were sent to the New York Aquarium where they are still living and in good condition.

The remaining sturgeon were liberated in the Roeliff Jansen kill.

It is the intention to take the short-nosed sturgeon again at the proper time in the Hudson, and, if possible, collect the eggs artificially and hatch them in a protected place. The fry can be reared in a small pond free from fish enemies, and it is hoped that the method will prove successful.

CATFISH.

Catfish usually spawn in the month of May, and sometimes continue until the middle of June. In open waters the parent fish make holes under the banks and deposit the eggs in large masses. The The very young fish look like little black tadpoles. The old fish accompanies the brood for a certain time, swimming around the swarm to keep them together. At such times it would be very easy to destroy the catfish by thousands. In Chautauqua lake the hatchery employees have caught thousands of pounds at a time in pound nets set for maskalonge. It would seem that by netting and by removing the swarms of young the fish could easily be reduced to such an extent as to cease to be troublesome.

According to a letter of the hatchery foreman dated May 9, 1911, the pound nets set for maskalonge in Chautauqua lake do not now take many catfish. The greatest number caught in any one net in a night was seventy-five; fifteen would be a good average for seven out of the eleven nets.

MINNOWS.

It is a very difficult thing to keep a large number of minnows in a small place. Fungus always attacks them; but it is not the cause of disease as it usually follows after some injury. The remedy for fungus is common salt. This may be placed in the

water in large quantities and the fish allowed to remain in the brine until they begin to show signs of distress, then flush out the tank with fresh water. The swift-water chub or horned dace, also the black-nosed dace, will not endure captivity as well as some other minnows. A good food for the minnow is minced earthworms and clams. Bread is not suitable for them. Spratt's put up a fish food consisting chiefly of animal meal which has been used successfully.

SHAD.

The upper waters of our shad streams have been so obstructed by high dams and otherwise made unfit for the reproduction of the species that the shad now spawns at comparatively short distances from the sea. For example, our men now take eggs at Rhinecliff, on the Hudson, a point 89 miles above New York and 45 miles below Castleton, which was the breeding ground of the shad twenty odd years ago. Still earlier the fish ascended the river as far as the dam at Troy which is 150 miles north of New York. They could not ascend farther. Fishways have not affected the movements of the shad upstream as far as can be ascertained.

On May 9, 1911, the first lot of shad eggs, consisting of 22 quarts, or 616,000 eggs, were delivered by fishermen at Rhinecliff to the Linlithgo Station. On the following day 31 quarts, equalling 868,000 eggs, were received from the same source. The number collected during the first two days of the season was greater than the average yield for the entire season a few years ago.

An improvement in the method of transferring the shad fry from the hatchery to the Roeliff Jansen kill has been devised by Foreman Rhines. He has connected a heavy rain spout with the receiving trough into which the fry pass as fast as they are hatched. This spout drops more than twenty feet before it reaches the creek, and in order to overcome the danger of shock a 45 degree elbow was introduced outside of the hatchery. By this means the little fish are conveyed gently into an artificial eddy made in the stream and from here they can readily pass into the creek and thence into the Hudson.