112 FISH HAEVESTING, 



I have spoken of this at .some length, because 

 it is a curious coincidence that the same fact 

 should have been discovered by two men a long 

 distance apart, about the same date., and by both 

 in the same way, by sheer accident. 



Now we come to a ticklish question: how 

 are the young fish vitalised in the abdomen of 

 the mother? In this case I shall adopt what I 

 conceive to be the most straightforward course, 

 which is candidly to give my own thoughts, and 

 solicit from abler, older, and better physiologists 

 their opinions or theories for I sincerely think 

 this is a question well worth careful investigation. 

 I believe the ova, after impregnation, at first 

 goes through the same transformations in the ova- 

 rium as it would do, supposing it to have been 

 spawned and fecundated in the ordinary spawn- 

 ing-bed, but only up to a certain point; then, I 

 think, the membrane enfolding the ova, that have 

 by this time assumed a fishlike type, takes on the 

 character and functions of a pkicental membrane, 

 and the young fish are supplied by an umbili- 

 cal cord, just as in the case of a fcetal mam- 

 mal. But a third change takes place. There 

 can be no doubt that the young fish I cut out, 

 and that swam away, had breathed before they 

 were freed from the mother; hence I am led 



