330 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 

 NOTE UPON THE FOREGOING BY FRANK N. CLARK. 



I am very well satisfied that they would have reached Melbourne in 

 substantially the same condition in which they were received at Sydney 

 had they not been exposed to a considerable rise in temperature between 

 these points. The low temperature provided from Sau Francisco to 

 Sydney would undoubtedly have carried them along considerably farther 

 than to Melbourne. They were packed the same as our most successful 

 consignments from this station to New Zealand and points less remote. 



The results of my refrigerator experiments with whitefish eggs on 

 flannel trays show that after eggs have been held some time at a low 

 temperature (32 to 34° F.), a rise in temperature of 8 to 10°, or even 

 4 to 5° if the eggs are well advanced in development, will invariably 

 cause premature hatching in a few hours if the increased temperature 

 is sustained. The eggs simply collapse. In these experiments no weight 

 of any kind was imposed on the eggs, nor was there a lack of ventila- 

 tion, but when subjected to the increased temperature the whole egg 

 structure would seem to weaken or relax, and collapse would follow. 

 This is not the case with eggs recently removed from water, unless they 

 are far advanced, but I have seen whole trays of comparatively young- 

 eggs (flannel trays, in a refrigerator) collapse in twenty-four hours on a 

 rise of 9° after having been heid thirty-two days in a temperature of 32° 

 to 34°. It is evident, therefore, that on a journey of several weeks they 

 should be more carefully guarded as to temperature later on than at the 

 beginning. In this instance the weight of moss probably hastened the 

 collapse, but a layer of moss is indispensable for a long journey, to pre- 

 vent drying out, a condition that would be fatal. All the conditions for 

 successful shipments from this place to Melbourne are easily within 

 reach, but such shipments are out of the question unless the tempera- 

 ture can be carefully guarded for all of that part of the journey beyond 

 San Francisco. 



Northville, Mich., April 14, 1885. 



REPORT BY MR. CHARLES CREIGHTON. 



Previous to my father's departure for Honolulu he desired me to re- 

 port the condition of the ova upon their arrival at Ballarat, Victoria. 



I am in receipt of a letter from Mr. J. Sisson Cooper, honorable sec- 

 retary of the Ballarat Fish Acclimatization Society, dated February 

 24, in which he reports that the ova arrived in Sydney in splendid con- 

 dition, but that in shipment from that port to Melbourne on board the 

 steamship Liguria, the captain of this steamer, fearing that the ice-room 

 was too cold, removed the ova to another part of the ship, in consequence 

 of which they all hatched out and were destroyed. 



Sa.n FRANcrsco, Cal., April 1, 1885. 



