XXIV.-AN ACCOUNT OF EXPERIMENTS IN OYSTER CULTURE 

 AND OBSERVATIONS RELATING THERETO. (SECOND SERIES.)* 



By John A. Ryder. 



The work of experiment with the eggs and embryos of Ostrea vir- 

 ginica were carried on for the season of 1882 at the experimental sta- 

 tion on Saint Jerome's Creek, Maryland, by Col. M. McDonald and my- 

 self, under the auspices of the United States Fish Commission. Other 

 experiments were also conducted at Beaufort, N. C, by Francis Wins- 

 low, U. S. ^., and Prof. W. K. Brooks, while Mr. Henry J. Eice experi- 

 mented in Mr. B. G. Blackford's laboratory, Fulton Market, New York 

 City. The other observers named above will, however, probably pub 

 lish their results at length in due time, so that it is unnecessary for me 

 to do more than allude to their work. 



I left Washington with the United States Fish Commission steamer 

 Fish Hawk in June last, but did not begin any actual investigations 

 until July 3 following. In the description of my investigations, as well 

 as those made jointly with Col. M. McDonald, 1 shall rely in great 

 measure upon the journal in which I recorded the principal observa- 

 tions and experiments from July 3 to August 11, 1882. 



July 3. — Investigated the contents of the stomachs of a number of 

 adult oysters taken from the channel which leads to the pond. The fol- 

 lowing organisms were observed amongst the more or less disintegrated 

 '' chyme " examined : Kauj)lii of crustaceans, their chitinous tests with 

 the soft animal contents more or less completely digested out ; emjrty 

 diatom frustules, as well as a number filled with a vacuolated rich-brown 

 eudochorme; one shell of a larval gastropod {Crepidula), and some 

 very young larvae of uudibranchiates ; the shell of a larval lamelli- 

 branch, not identified, with the valves still adhering together. Mature 

 zooids of Pedicellina americana Leidy were also noticed, and in the pos- 

 terior portion or pyloric end of the stomach vast numbers of vibrios 

 were noticed, which I identify as a form generically ideutical with Spir- 



* The first of this series has already been published in the report of the Maryland 

 Commissioner for 1881, embracing my work for that year. The present paper was pre- 

 pared some time in September, 1882. 



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