118 FISH HARVESTING. 
each portion of orange. This isexactly the way 
the fish are packed in this novel placental sac. 
If it were practicable to remove each fish from 
its space, and the sac retain its normal shape, 
there would be twelve or fourteen openings 
(depending upon the number of young fish), 
the wall of each division being a double fold 
of membrane —the double edges wrapping or, 
as it were, folding over the fish. Now make a 
hole in the end of this folded bag, and blow it 
full of air, and you get at once the globe-shaped 
membranous sac I have likened to an orange. 
The fish are always arranged to economise 
space: when the head of a young fish points to 
the head of its mother, the next to it is reversed, 
and looks towards the tail. I am quite convinced 
that the young fish are packed away by doubling 
or folding the sac in the way I have endeavoured 
to describe. I have again and again dissected 
out this ovarian bag, filled with fish in various 
stages of development, and floating it in salt- 
water, have, with a fine-pointed needle, opened 
the edges of the double membranous divisions 
that enwrap the fish—(the amount of overlap- » 
ping is of course greater when the fish is in its 
earlier stages of development). On separating 
the edges of the sac, out the little fishes pop. I 
have obtained them in all stages of their growth, 
