THE ATLANTIC SALMON. 489 



for shipment was began. It was then discovered that they did not 

 resist the action of the atmosphere as well as usual. In a few hours 

 after being taken from the water, even though enveloped in very damp 

 moss, the outer shell was found to have shrunken. Some of the recip- 

 ients of the packages remarked that the eggs were shrunken like raisins. 

 In many cases, even on short journeys, a good many of the eggs burst 

 open prematurely, and even of those that held together many were so 

 injured that they died before hatching or soon after.* Nearly all the 

 lots of eggs that were sent away suffered severely, and in the end so 

 many of the young fish perished that the number set free in the rivers 

 was but 56 percent, of the number of eggs taken. Those that remained 

 in the house at Bucksport until hatched succeeded much better than 

 those sent away. About 260,000 eggs were left there, and 234,000 healthy 

 young fish obtained from them; and the loss would have been smaller 

 still had not there been among the eggs a few thousand that had been 

 packed for shipment and afterward returned to the troughs. 



So generally were the eggs affected that the malady cannot be attrib- 

 uted to any local cause in the hatching-house. The cause must have 

 been one that operated on all the eggs this season and not at all in other 

 seasons. Our observations show that the water used in the hatching- 

 house, in which all the eggs developed, was, in November of this year, 

 in an unusually low and turbid condition, — turbid with microscopic veg- 

 etation and saturated with solutions from the muddy bottom and shores 

 of the pond, — was, in short, entirely unlike the clear new water that the 

 autuinu rains usually bring in before the cl.ose.of October. In the action 

 of this water on the eggs, either after spawning or before it had left the 

 ovaries of the mother fish, it seems most reasonable to look for an expla- 

 nation of the imperfect condition of the shells, t In all other respects, 

 so far as known, these eggs had the same treatment as those of other 

 years when they turned out healthy. 



Means were taken to guard against a similar misfortune the next 

 season, by preparations for the development of the eggs in another 

 place, commanding a supply of better water, should circumstances de- 

 mand it ; but fortunately the water was renewed by the wonted rains, 

 and at the time of this writing it is late enough to say that the eggs 

 and young fry of 1875 and 1876 were perfectly healthy. 



The eggs taken in 1874 were estimated, when they were measured into 

 the troughs, at 3,056,500; but the measurement at time of distribution 

 showed 2,842,977 divided among the subscribers, and previous to that 



*In examining some of these weak eggs that had been standing at rest, I discovered 

 that the weakest place in the shell was in each case just over the eyes of the embryo, 

 and at that point the shell gave way on application of pressure. I do not know how 

 to explain this phenomenon, unless it be that the shell of the egg is in normal cases 

 softened by some secretion of the embryo at the proper time for birth, and that in the 

 defective specimens the secretion was simply exuded prematurely. 



tit is to be noted that the parent fish showed no signs of disease at anytime, being in 

 the fall remarkably fine. 



