812 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



the subject kuow to be highly improbable, and it is no reflection on any 

 mode of packing to find, after a journey of ten or twelve days, that 4 or 

 o per cent, are dead. The fact that they are surrounded by 95 per cent, 

 of good eggs is suflflcient to show that the fault is in the egg, as far 

 beyond the power of man to help as the cause is beyond his knowledge. 



The eggs at Blacksburg were kept eleven days after arrival, and when, 

 opened each dead egg bad, by its fungoid connection, become the nucleus 

 of a ring of eggs killed by it, each of which in turn was throwing out 

 the deadly filaments on all sides. One egg can thus be surrounded by 

 six. Outside this ring the eggs were in a good state, but the original 

 egg had decayed, and was so firmly attached to the netting above and 

 below it that in opening it was torn in two parts. The lower layer in 

 each crate was the worst, and in one box this was almost entirely spoiled 

 and warm, thus showing that the heat from below was not so well ab- 

 sorbed by the ice on account of the intervening packing. 



My next experience was in Kew York City, in 1876, where it was nearly 

 the same. Twenty thousand eggs arrived six days before the carpen- 

 ters had completed their work, and were iced in the cellar; on opening 

 them, October 11, 12 per cent, were dead, with the ring and decayed 

 nucleus, as before ; the remainder, however, were good, and I find by 

 my notes that the first fish hatched October IG, and all were out on the 

 26th, or fifteen days after placing them in the troughs. Another lot of 

 40,000 arriving on the 18th, and opened immediately, had a trifle less 

 than 4 per cent, dead, and not a trace of fungus, the dead ones looking 

 as clean as possible. This I call excellent condition. Having these 

 things in mind, and knowing that the ship would leave New York on 

 October 13, and was due at Bremen on the 26th, the date on which a 

 former lot were all hatched, 1 saw the necessity also of keeping the 

 temperature down to prevent hatching on the passage, as well as to see 

 that no fungus was allowed to germinate. 



On the 7th of October, 1877, the refrigerator car from California arrived 

 at Chicago loaded with salmon eggs, and was received by Prof. James 

 W. Milner, deputy commissioner on fish and fisheries, who delivered to 

 me the following lots of eggs : Two crates, 50,000 eggs, for England, care 

 of F. Buckland, London ; two crates, 50,000 eggs, for France, care of So- 

 cietie d'Acclimatation, Paris ; two crates, 50,000 eggs, for Germany, care 

 of Herr von B6hr, Deutsche Fischerei Verein ; two crates, 50,000 eggs, 

 for Germany, care of M. Friedenthal, minister of agriculture, Prussia; 

 four crates, 100,000 eggs, for Holland, care of C. B. Bottemanne, royal 

 zoological garden, Amsterdam. As they would arrive in New York on 

 the morning of the 9th, and the ship did not sail until the afternoon of 

 the 13th, it was thought advisable to take them to my own house in 

 Newark, N. J., ten miles from New York, where there was a very cool 

 cellar, and no danger of interference by curious people, nor expense of 

 storage. 



After getting all ready and opening and repacking one of the boxes for 

 Germany, the contents of which were in splendid condition, I received a 



