ARTIFICIAL HATCHING OF SPAWN. 51 



centre of the bung an open tube should be inserted, 

 and the bottle should, of course, be carried as upright 

 and steadily as possible, avoiding all shocks which 

 will disturb and destroy the organization of the egg, 

 which at that period is very delicate ; l but the safest 

 and best plan is not to remove the ova, if it can be 

 avoided, until the eyes are visible. 



Of some 3,500 salmon ova, sent to the Thames 

 Society, immediately after they were taken from the 

 fish, from Galway and Clitheroe, scarce more than 

 ten in a thousand hatched. Out of the 2,000 from 

 Clitheroe, just twenty-five were hatched. It was 

 supposed, by the gentlemen in charge of the opera- 

 tions, that the eggs had not been fecundated, or only 



1 The reader will understand this better by the following ex- 

 ample : — If you take a bird's egg from the nest and shake it, and 

 then put it back, that egg will not hatch, although it may not 

 immediately go off bad, but may retain its fresh appearance for a 

 long period. If it be shaken so violently as to destroy utterly the 

 principle of life contained in it, then of course it will addle and 

 become putrid speedily. If, on the other hand, it retains sufficient 

 vitality to hatch, the chances are that it dies very soon after birth 

 from the injury it has sustained in the egg ; or it comes into the 

 world with some of the natural functions destroyed or disturbed, or 

 a deformed thing. Deformities are very common in fish eggs 

 that have travelled far. Even when the eggs of birds are sent 

 upon a journey, they should be placed in sawdust, upright, 

 with the small end downwards, and shaking avoided as much as 

 possible. 



E 2 



