XXIV.-AN ACCOUNT OF EXPERIMENTS IN OYSTER CULTURE 

 AND OBSERVATIONS RELATING THERETO. (SECOND SERIES.)* 



By John A. Ryder. 



The work of experiment with the eggs and embryos of Ostrea vir- 

 ginica were carried on for the season of 1882 at the experimental sta- 

 tion on Saint Jerome's Creek, Maryland, by Col. M. McDonald and my- 

 self, under the auspices of the United States Fish Commission. Other 

 experiments were also conducted at Beaufort, N. C, by Francis Wins- 

 low, U. S. N., and Prof. W. K. Brooks, while Mr. Henry J. Eice experi- 

 mented in Mr. E. Gr. Blackford's laboratory, Fulton Market, New York 

 City. The other observers named above will, however, probably pub- 

 lish their results at length in due time, so that it is unnecessary for me 

 to do more than allude to their work. 



I left Washington with the United States Fish Commission steamer 

 Fish Hawk in June last, but did not begin any actual investigations 

 until July 3 following. In the description of my investigations, as well 

 as those made jointly with Col. M. McDonald, 1 shall rely in great 

 measure upon the journal in which I recorded the principal observa- 

 tions and experiments from July 3 to August 11, 1882. 



July 3. — Investigated the contents of the stomachs of a number of 

 adult oysters taken from the channel which leads to the pond. The fol- 

 lowing organisms were observed amongst the more or less disintegrated 

 "chyme" examined: Nauplii of crustaceans, their chitinous tests with 

 the soft animal contents more or less completely digested out ; empty 

 diatom frustules, as well as a number filled with a vacuolated rich-brown 

 endochorme; one shell of a larval gastropod (Crepidula), and some 

 very young larvae of nudibranchiates ; the shell of a larval lamelli- 

 branch, not identified, with the valves still adhering together. Mature 

 zooids of Pedicellina americana Leidy were also noticed, and in the pos- 

 terior portion or pyloric end of the stomach vast numbers of vibrios 

 were noticed, which I identify as a form generically identical with Spir- 



* The first of this series has already been published in the report of the Maryland 

 Commissioner for 1881, embracing my work for that year. The present paper was pre- 

 pared some time in September, 1882. 



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