530 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The indicatious from these few experiments are that the eggs retain 

 their vital powers much longer than the milt within the dead bodies of 

 the fish. 



The experience of fish culturists is certainly in favor of the immediate 

 use of the milt from the living male fish, their experiments indicating 

 that the vitality of the milt continues for but a few minutes when diluted 

 with water, and even undiluted its certainty of effect rapidly decreases 

 to zero. 



That eggs and milt retain sufficient vitality when removed from fishes 

 but a short time dead to produce a living embryo may be true, but there 

 is also quite a possibility that there would be less vigor in the embryos 

 and in the growing fish than in the case of eggs and milt from a live 

 fish. 



One of the investigators of the incipient embryonic development, 

 studying the process in the amphibia,* as one of his conclusions, makes 

 the following statement: "Partial impregnation is shown in imperfect 

 segmentation of the yelk, and is due to the spermatozoa being insuffi- 

 cient in quantity, or in duration of contact, or inefficient through dimin- 

 ished vitality j and it may also result from diminished susceptibility in 

 the ovum." It will readily be admitted that some of these unfavorable 

 conditions are very liable to occur when the spermatozoa or ova from 

 dead fishes are used. 



The small i>er cent, of fishes produced from a quantity of eggs where 

 there is the slightest lapse of care and attention on the part of the 

 breeder is convincing evidence to all who have had even a slight ex- 

 perience that no large results could be expected from this practice. 

 Where the fishes are taken near the curing-houses and are dressed 

 within a short time after death, in all probability a small portion of the 

 ripe eggs wo-uld develop into fishes ; but in localties where many of the 

 fisheries are situated, the fishing-gTounds are so far away that the fish 

 are dead for several hours before they reach the shore, and the per- 

 centage of fishes produced from the spawn would be very small, if any- 

 thing. 



4. — ARTIFICIAL FECUNDATION. 



Introductory remarlcs. — The evidences advanced to prove a knowledge 

 of the third method referred to, before the time of Jacobi, are not, so- 

 far, suflSciently definite, and the data produced by Baron de Moutgau- 

 dry to show that Dom Pinchon was the inventor of the art, in so far as 

 it involves artificial fecundation, are very unsatisfactory.] 



The description he gives of the apparatus proves Dom Pinchou's process 

 in caring for the eggs during the period of development to have been the 



* On tlie Impreguation of the Ovum in tbe Amphibia, and the direct agency of the 

 spermatozoon ; Ptoc. Rby. Soc. June 17, 1852, George Newport, F. E. S., &c. 



t Bulk-tin de la Socict<S Zoologique d'Acclimatation. Fondle le 10 Fe\Tier, 1854. 

 Tome premier. Paris, 1854, p- 80t 



