Fish Culturists 1 Association. 



therefore it is exceedingly interesting to me. Would it not be 

 possible, at the next meeting of this Association, for such a 

 scientific subject to be more thoroughly studied in this Aquarium ? 

 Would it be possible for you, Mr. Mather, to examine carefully 

 the action of milt upon eggs, and by carefully watching it to 

 determine how the increase is formed ? 



Mr. Mather : It might, if we had the spawning-fish here, bu t 

 there are very few here in the Aquarium that will spawn. We 

 intend to do everything we can do in that way. I hope this 

 coming season to take some eggs of some salt-water fish that 

 have never been taken, and if I carry out that intention I may 

 do something of that kind. I have done very little microscopic 

 work, and that that I referred to awhile ago as watching was 

 done by a very fine worker, Dr. Shafer of Washington, who is 

 well known in microscopic work ; it was with him that I observed 

 these things and learned many things about impregnation. I 

 have done but very little of it myself. I am studying it, and I 

 hope to arrive at some results by-and-by. 



Mr. Phillips then read an article upon the Centennial, and 

 upon the value of different kinds of fish as food, as follows : 



Gentlemen : There are certain topics which are everlasting. 

 Being everlasting, they are monstrously tiresome. When an 

 endeavor is made to explain such topics with any degree of 

 amplitude, they may be listened to for the moment with some 

 amount of attention, but it is very doubtful whether much 

 immediate effect is produced. We get around the long explana- 

 tions of things which are self-evident by inventing certain brief, 

 pithy sentences, which we call proverbs. We say "time is 

 money," which has been often twisted into an idea of this kind, 

 "that time or credit is money." Another well-known saw is 

 "waste not, want not." No man ever did take these few words 



