TAKING THE EGGS. 99 



among the fish, or of this or that one selecting its mate, 

 counting for nothing. The fish of either sex has no 

 choice and no knowledge as to the individual through 

 whom its progeny shall be generated. The female 

 fish may become a mother without ever having seen 

 her mate, and the male may become the father of in- 

 numerable offspring without ever having seen the 

 mother. Whatever margin of uncertainty the un im- 

 pregnated eggs of the old system might have afforded 

 for the conjecture that empty eggs were the conse- 

 quence of mismating on the part of the fish, or rather 

 of the manipulator, there is none left now. Mechani- 

 cal contact of eggs and milt, indiscriminately taken, 

 produces all the results that mutual affection and 

 choice of mates could accomplish. There is now no 

 possible place left for sentiment in the connubial rela- 

 tions of trout that are artificially spawned. 



There are also two practical advantages incidentally 

 connected with this Russian discovery, and with these 

 I will close this. discussion of its consequences. One 

 of these advantages is that the operator need not feel 

 obliged to hurry through the impregnation process, as 

 he was formerly obliged to, lest the milt should become 

 worthless before the eggs were secured, or vice versa, 

 for by the dry method he can have time enough. And 

 the other is, that when there is danger that the milt 

 will run short on any day, the surplus milt of previous 

 more favorable days can be bottled up and kept for 

 the emergency, when the day's supply of milt proves 

 insufficient. 



Let us now return to the subject more particularly 



