202 The Life Story of the Fish 



(the eternal triangle — presumably, two males and one fe- 

 male) have been seen milling around in the shallows, with 

 white clouds of the milt emitted by the males appearing in 

 the water. 



The next step in the study was to recover some of the eggs. 

 Since it was known that the nearly ripe eggs taken from 

 captured females sank, a very fine-meshed net was towed 

 along the bottom. The naturally deposited eggs had never 

 before been found, and the scientist in charge of the work 

 apparently mistrusted the danger of over-optimism, for with 

 the refusal to accept even the most hoped-for fact without 

 absolute proof which all scientists must learn, he reports that, 

 of the very few eggs of any kind which his tow nets took, 

 "there was one type that we have been unable to eliminate 

 as clearly not that of the tarpon." Then, almost yielding to 

 temptation, he does permit himself to say: "If this is not the 

 tgg of the tarpon it is surprisingly like what the nearly ripe 

 eggs must approach on full development." 



These eggs were one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, as 

 compared to less than one-thirty-second of an inch for the 

 eggs found in the nearly ripe ovaries j but the latter swell to 

 the size of the former when permitted to stand in water — 

 a process known as "water-hardening," whereby water per- 

 meates through the egg surface and enters the space between 

 the inner and outer membranes, thus providing a cushion 

 which protects the developing embryo against shocks. The 

 prized eggs were taken to the laboratory and hatched in 

 basins in the hope that their development would give sure 

 proof of the species to which they belonged, but it was found 

 impossible to keep any of the little fish alive for more than 

 three days. During this period they shrank in size instead of 

 growing, and the most advanced laboratory stage showed 

 "characters not unlike those seen in the pre-leptocephalid 

 larvae of apodal fishes." 



