EXPORTATION OF FISHES AND HATCHING APPARATUS. 1001 



a very marked difference between both, and the home ova and fish. 

 The young fish rise most readily to the flies thrown to them, whatever 

 the adult fish may do. Should you require any information regarding 

 the fish here, I should always most willingly give it. 

 I have, &c., 



H. HOWAED. 

 Dr. Hector, 



Colonial Museum, Wellington. 



[Extract.] 



Washington, D. C, May 14, 1877. 



Dear Sir : I am in receipt of your letters of 4th and 5th April, and, 

 with you, regret the failure of the experiment in regard to the whitefish. 

 The suggestion, however, that possibly there was some mistake in the 

 eggs, intentional or otherwise, was enough to produce a slight feeling 

 of irritation, not toward you, of course, but at the person who could 

 imagine that in a matter of this kind any error could or would be com- 

 mitted. 



These eggs are all taken in the Detroit Eiver, to which the whitefish 

 of Lake Erie resort for the purpose of spawning. The fish are secured 

 in large seines, and many of them are kept alive for a considerable time 

 before the spawn is removed. There are no Clupeidce in the lakes except 

 a very broad species having* no resemblance whatever to the whitefish, 

 and which does not spawn in the autumn. 



The suggestion of there being any possible relation between the size 

 of the fish and that of the egg is not warranted at all by the facts. The 

 egg of the cod-fish is extremely minute ; that of the striped bass {Boccus 

 lineatus), which attains sometimes a weight of 75 pounds or 100 pounds, 

 is not the fiftieth of an inch in diameter. The egg of our whitefish is 

 smaller than that of the European species ; a consignment received from 

 Germany of Coregonus marcena took every one by surprise from its supe- 

 rior dimensions. 



Of precisely the same hatching of eggs as those sent you, millions of 



young fish have been hatched and safely deposited; and I myself have 



seen a small number from the same hatching-house and the same stock, 



having, unmistakably, all the characteristics of the genus Coregonus. 



I have, &c., 



SPENCER F. BAIRD. 



James Hector, Esq., M. D. 



Dun Alister, Wyndham, June 2, 1877. 

 Sir : At a recent meeting of the commissioners appointed to manage 

 the Southland Salmon Ponds the following resolution was agreed to, 



