126 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [^Pl'i^ 



has given to fish, it is a wonder, indeed, that all the world is not fish. 

 The eggs of fish are simply the hard roe of fish ; and if you ex- 

 amine the next red-herring for breakfast you will find that the 

 hard roe is composed of a large number of little balls, each of which 

 might possibly come to a fish. You will find in books on natural 

 history the number of eggs in fish. Not trusting altogether to 

 these statements, I have been at some considerable pains to count 

 the eggs* of the following fish. To begin with the salmon, these 

 fish carry about 1,000 eggs to a pound of their weight; so if we 

 can get a fish weighing twenty-five pounds, we have no less than 

 25,000 eggs. 



If therefore a female salmon weighing 20 lbs. deposited her 

 eo-o-s in some safe place, and they all eventually became marketable 

 fish, which would be in three or four years' time, we should find 

 that the eggs of this one salmon would yield no less than 178 tons 

 11 cwt. of salmon fit for food ; and supposing we put this down at 

 2s. per lb., it would be worth £40,000. Even supposing only a 

 quarter of the young fish ever became marketable, still this one 

 fish would yield a value of £10,000, and all without costing any 

 human being a half-penny for food. A trout of one pound weight 

 contains over 1000 eggs, a perch of half a pound 20,592, a smelt 

 of two ounces 36,652, a sole of one pound 134,466, a herring of 

 half a pound 19,840, a mackerel of one pound 86,120, and a cod 

 of twenty pounds not less than 4,872,000 eggs, while an oyster 

 yields about 1,500,000. 



It may be asked, therefore, what becomes of all the eggs of the 



* The way to count the eggs is this : Make a few cuts with a knife in 

 the membrane which contains the roe, and then plunge it into water 

 which is, at the moment of immersion, positively at the boiling-point. 

 Being composed of albumen, the eggs obey the natural law and coagu- 

 late in an instant. Then add a little common salt, and continue to boil 

 the eggs till they all become quite detached from the membrane, and 

 swim about in the water, loose like marbles. If they adhere to the mem- 

 brane, they should be gently removed by a short brush, or by shaking in 

 the boiling water. I then, when all the eggs are quite loose, draw off the 

 water and pour the eggs into a dish, drying them slowly in the 

 sun, or in an oven, the door of which is left open to prevent their 

 becoming baked into lumps. I then weigh the whole mass of eggs, and 

 put down the total weight on paper. After which I weigh out five grains 

 of the mass, and get them counted over carefully under a magnifying 

 hand-glass, on white paper. This is ladies' work. 



