98 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



spawning trout are immature, and therefore cannot 

 be impregnated, must be given up. I have opposed 

 this theory all through my trout-breeding experience, 

 and insisted that the trouble in poor impregnations 

 was not in the eggs, but in the milt, as it has now 

 turned out to be. But the immature-egg theory had 

 its advocates in high quarters, and has been very gen- 

 erally received. There, however, can be no question 

 about it hereafter. If ninety-five per cent of the eggs 

 are impregnated and hatched by the Russian method, 

 then not more than five per cent of the eggs are 

 immature, and we doubt if even this small proportion 

 are. 



The Russian discovery also wholly sets aside the 

 question about which there has been such contradic- 

 tory opinions, as to whether the milt or the eggs should 

 be taken first. Under the old regime it was considered 

 an important matter, and so it was ; but now it makes 

 no difference which is used first, as, either way, both 

 the milt and the eggs will remain operative long 

 enough for all practical purposes of impregnation, and 

 in both cases the results will be the same. 



In consequence of the discovery that all mature eggs 

 are impregnated by coming in contact with ripe milt, 

 the fish, both male and female, being taken at random, 

 we are compelled to admit, however unwillingly, that 

 the origin of fish life, in artificial impregnation at least, 

 is wholly a mechanical affair. The mere mechanical 

 mixing of the ripe milt of any male and the ripe eggs 

 of any female creates the germ of life, and perpetuates 

 the race, all previous considerations of pairing off 



