BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 215 



its bulk while alive. This shrinkage is due to abstraction of the water 

 with which the loose, spongy tissue of the exhausted animal is distended. 

 A so-called "fat" oyster, on the other hand, will suffer no such excess- 

 ive diminution in bulk when placed in alcohol or other hardening fluid. 

 In consequence of this variable development of the reproductive organs 

 as well as that of the connective tissue of the body-mass, the amount 

 of solid protoplasmic material contained in the same animal at different 

 times under different conditions must vary between wide limits. And, 

 inasmuch as the nutritive and reproductive functions of animals are 

 notoriously interdependent, it follows in consequence of the enormous 

 fertility of the oyster that a vast amount of stored material in the shape 

 of connective tissue must be annually converted into germs and annu- 

 ally replaced by nutritive processes. Plentitude or dearth of food are 

 also to be considered ; but it now becomes a little easier to understand 

 the physiological interdependence of the reproductive function and the 

 so-called fattening process. 



To a great extent what has been remarked in the preceding para- 

 graphs of the wasting away of the reproductive organs in Ostrea vir- 

 ginica, seems to apply also to 0. edulis and 0. angulata. The last species 

 has an extraordinarily thick body- mass with the stratum of reproduct- 

 ive follicles of remarkable thickness, averaging a much greater develop- 

 ment than I have ever seen in any other form. When the contents of 

 this great mass of tubules has been discharged a diminution in the bulk 

 of the body-mass must naturally ensue, probably accompanied by a 

 wasting away of the connective tissue and tubules such as apparently 

 occurs in the American species. From what I have seen of the gener- 

 ative tubules of 0. edulis in sections, they are evidently regenerated 

 much as in 0. virginica. In a few specimens I find them almost entirely 

 gone, or present only in an extremely rudimentary state. 



BBIXGIX; WHALE OIL FROM THE PACIFIC TO NEW YOBK. 

 By FREDERICK HABERSHAW. 



[From letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.] 



I am bringing the Northwest Pacific whale oil, which is now delivered 

 by whalers at San Francisco, to the Atlantic by bulk cars instead of by 

 Cape Horn route, as formerly. The total amount coming thus by rail 

 is 21 cars this year, averaging 3,300 gallons each, or 69,300 gallons. 



San Francisco has become the whaling depot of the Pacific, for the 

 fitting up and discharging of whalers ; it is only a question of time when 

 all this product will be brought to the Atlantic by rail. Probably in a 

 few years all the manufacturing will be done there instead of at New 

 Bedford. 



113 Maiden Lane, New Yoek, January 30, 1883. 



