112 FISH HARVESTING. 
I have spoken of this at some length, because 
it is a curious coincidence that the same fact 
should have been discovered by two men a long 
distance apart, about the same date, and by both 
in the same way,—by sheer accident. 
Now we come to a ticklish question: how 
are the young fish vitalised in the abdomen of 
the mother? In this case I shall adopt what I 
conceive to be the most straightforward course, 
which is candidly to give my own thoughts, and 
solicit from abler, older, and better physiologists 
their opinions or theories—for I sincerely think 
this is a question well worth careful investigation. 
I believe the ova, after impregnation, at first 
goes through the same transformations in the ova- 
rium as it would do, supposing it to have been 
spawned and fecundated in the ordinary spawn- 
ing-bed, but only up to a certain point; then, I 
think, the membrane enfolding the ova, that have 
by this time assumed a fishlike type, takes on the 
character and functions of a placental membrane, 
and the young fish are supplied by an umbili- 
cal cord, just as in the case of a fetal mam- 
mal. But a third change takes place. There 
can be no doubt that the young fish I cut out, 
and that swam away, had breathed before they 
were freed from the mother; hence I am led 
