THE TARPON 41 



young fish are found in Florida, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, 

 Trinidad, Aransas Pass, Lake Nicaragua and in the Bahamas. 



While fishing at Boca Grande on June 5th, 1921, I captured 

 a female tarpon which weighed 142 pounds and was 6' 8" long. 

 The ovaries were full of immature eggs and were carefully 

 dissected out of the fish after being measured. They were 1%" 

 in length and about 3" in diameter in the thickest parts. I en- 

 closed them in two glass jars partially filled with the formalin 

 solution and sent them to Dr. Nichols for his examination and 

 deductions. Dr. Nichols found that the gross w^eight of these 

 eggs, including the membranes enclosing them, was 82% 

 ounces. He caused a portion of an ounce of eggs to be counted 

 and found that there were 163,840 eggs per ounce. After de- 

 ducting 10% for the weight of the membranes in the mass it 

 is evident that this fish contained approximately 12,201,984 

 eggs. While the estimation was not exact it is safe to say that 

 a large female carries over ten million eggs. If each ^^^ had 

 developed into a fish as large as the parent the sea would have 

 been enriched with 866,340 tons of tarpon. Such is the pro- 

 digality of nature ! 



I examined the eggs from nine females taken from June 5th 

 to June 22nd, 1920. One female was spent, having very few 

 eggs left in the ovaries and these contained minute specks of 

 blood. She was bright and healthy looking, having the appear- 

 ance of being fresh from the sea. It is not uncommon to see a 

 tarpon which has a distinct yellowish color, which probably 

 denotes a comparatively long sojourn either in fresh or shal- 

 low^ water. The eggs from this fish were not perceptibly larger 

 than the others examined. In several cases eggs w^ere ejected 

 by slight pressure along the belly of the fish. I have seen males 

 eject milt in the act of leaping while on the hook, and heard of 

 many cases where this was observed by fellow anglers. The 

 evidence seems to point to the conclusion that some of these 

 fish were ready to spawn. I experimented to see if the eggs 



