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The Tarrp Winter Meerrne for the present season was held 
in the Lecture Theatre of the Science School in Gloucester, on 
Tuesday, the 22nd of March, when a paper was read by Mr 
Francis Day, C.I.E., F.L.S., on “‘ Experiments on the Eggs of 
Salmonide,” which, he observed, were a continuation of experi- 
ments made in previous years. 
The first deleterious agent to which he referred was the 
action of cold, for although, in a modified form, it is beneficial 
to the incubation of Salmonoid eggs, still, when in an intense 
degree, it may prove fatal. Those fishes, it is known, normally 
reside in cold and temperate regions, while they breed during 
the coldest months of the year; consequently some authors 
have concluded that their eggs may be frozen and the embryo 
still survive, but very strong evidence has been adduced that 
freezing destroys the vitality of these eggs, and now an oppor- 
tunity offered of testing this assertion on a large scale. The 
author described a series of searching tests to which the eggs 
were subjected, with the result in all cases of their vitality 
being destroyed. Then the character of the water used had to 
be considered; the ova may be poisoned by refuse, suffocated 
by sediment, or die if distilled water be used,—the two last 
being due to inability to respire. But pump water or rain 
water will suffice to incubate eggs, but not to rear the young, 
because they possess no food, consequently the latter has to be 
added. A form of pollution examined was that of paraffin. 
The experiment seemed to show that no injury from paraffin, 
unless it is very impure, need be anticipated to be immediately 
fatal to the embryos in the egg; but this does not prove that 
the young will hatch, or if they do, that the alevins will be 
strong or healthy. 
Circumstances induced the author to investigate whether 
the presence of a considerable amount of peat in solution 
would prove destructive to the eggs. During the course of 
these experiments the eggs had to be frequently washed, in 
order to prevent the suffocation of the embryos. The length 
of the head was proportionately longer in the embryos which 
had been in the peat solution than in those which had continued 
