42 THE TARPON 



would float in sea water but they slowly sank to the bottom. 

 The small fry greedil}'^ devoured them. 



The ripe fish certainly spawned in the vicinity of Boca 

 Grande. 



Dr. Alfred C. Weed of the Field Museum at Chicago is one 

 of our authorities on fishes. He writes me as follows : 



''Where fish are so ripe that the sexual elements are 

 released on slight pressure or in their efforts to escape 

 capture, they will not move far before spawning. I seri- 

 ously doubt their being more than a mile from the spawn- 

 ing grounds. This is a general statement and refers to 

 smaller fish. In the case of the tarpon, it might be three or 

 four miles." 

 One year I arranged with my guide, Mr. Mack Mickle of 

 Boca Grande, to examine fish after I had gone home. He took 

 ten or fifteen samples of eggs from June 22nd to about August 

 5th, 1920. He also found several spent females and sent me 

 samples of the eggs he took. The last eggs collected showed no 

 noticeable increase in size over those taken a month earlier. 

 Dr. Nichols kindly measured these eggs. They ran from 0.6 to 

 0.75 mm. in diameter. As some of these specimens were taken 

 from spent fish I am reasonably certain they were fully de- 

 veloped. It, therefore, seems to be fairly well established that 

 the eggs of the tarpon are exceedingly small and remarkably 

 numerous. 



Dr. Nichols in a personal letter says : 



"Anadromous fishes as a rule, have large and few eggs 

 as compared to fishes spawning in the sea. Trout and 

 salmon eggs are large and few. The eggs of the sea herring 

 are much smaller than those of the related shad, and about 

 equally numerous, though the shad is a larger fish. The 

 rule is not absolute, for the ale wife (anadromous) has 

 eggs somewhat more numerous and only somewhat larger 

 than the sea herring. But the eggs being exceedingly small 

 and exceedingly numerous, the probability is that the tar- 

 pon spawns in the sea. If your results, that the tarpon egg 



