138 
floating on the surface of the water, which with the eggs that 
were free (7,500 in number) were carefully transferred into 
three incubating trays, marked No.1, 2 and 3, and in which 
the water stood at 31° Fahr. But after this had been done, a 
coating of ice could be distinctly seen lining the entire internal 
surface of the can, there forming a solid incrustation, and in 
which were imbedded numerous eggs. 
The next morning, December 12th, at 8 a.m., this solid 
block of ice lining the tin can still remained unthawed, but 
the temperature of the water in the trays had risen from 31° 
to 33° Fahr., and of the air to 30°, and it was not until 6.30 p.m. 
that the ice could be extracted along with the eggs, or at 
about 544 hours after having left Stirling by train. They 
were at once placed in a separate incubating tray, some being 
still embedded in solid ice, and many appeared to be white and 
opaque. In fact, this probably gave a good idea of the con- 
dition eggs would be in when frozen in redds on the subsidence 
of streams during severe frosts, and which, as I shall show, 
must be directly fatal to many of the ova. At 7.30 p.m., 
several blocks of ice were still floating about with eggs im- 
bedded in them.* 
December 13th, water in the trays at 9 a.m. was 86°; one 
piece of solid ice in which 14 eggs were yesterday seen to be 
embedded had now thawed; 7 of the ova were dead and opaque, 
but 5 were still living. About 1 in 8 or 10 of the entire lot 
of the eggs which had been frozen were now dead. 
December 14th, water in the trays 40°, completed picking 
the frozen eggs, and found that up to this time 966 were dead 
out of 2,513, or close upon 1 in 24; on the 19th, examined a num- 
ber of these eggs in tray No. 4 (the frozen lot), and it appeared 
that the general course which they took was, that a small 
white spot first commenced, which after a longer or shorter space 
of time, formed a white ring round the egg, or else a white 
semi-circle first showed itself, subsequently the entire egg 
became white. As will be seen by the figures in the table, 
* The daily register of deaths and the numbers hatched is given in a 
tabular form in order to save repetition. 
