FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



States that Mr. Atkins hatched some eggs which were exposed to 

 the full force of running water, "in fact, that spawn only hatched 

 which remained attached to grass, twigs, or other articles situated 

 in a direct raceway, and where the water rushed along very 

 furiously. The spawn seemed to require, at least for its artificial 

 culture, a constant and furious change of water, differing, un- 

 doubtedly in this respect, very widely from its requirements 

 when deposited by the fish upon its natural spawning grounds. 

 The fish tiie Commission had to deal with, on the contrary, ana- 

 dromous, and we had no rush of water in which to deposit the 

 spawn." 



Prof. Rice used the Ferguson hatching jar. He records the 

 use of glass, untwisted rope- warp, gauze, etc., and says: "The 

 greater portion of these dead eggs were upon the grass, rope, 

 moss and twigs already mentioned, and the greater portion of 

 fish came from those eggs which were taken on trays covered 

 with gauze, and those eggs which were massed together in the 

 bottom of the jar, in the strength of whatever current there was." 

 He says; p. 52, "This fungus covering the eggs must have a very 

 deleterious effect upon them, and I do not think it would be very 

 wrong to ascribe to it the death of a goodly portion of the eggs." 



I read this some years ago and agreed to it because not only 

 my own experience, but that of every other fish-culturist agreed 

 that fungus meant death to all fish eggs. My lessons this winter 

 seem to prove that with the eggs of the smelt a rush of water or 

 rather an excess of oxygen which is brought by it, means death, 

 and the outside eggs meet it first, and by the bulwark of their 

 dead bodies those inside are preserved. I am aware that this is 

 not only a new view to take of the development of a fish egg, 

 but one that is liable to assault from many sides. Still, with 

 only one season's experience, I launch it as my pi'esent belief, 

 subject to change as the fugitive -Tempus discloses new facts or 

 brings forward new experiences. I have never feared to hold 

 unpopular beliefs or to stand by what I thought to be right, and 

 now only wish that the smelt had yielded more eggs, which 

 might have been tried in all degrees of flow, from moderate to 

 almost stagnant water. Certain it is that all the fish we hatched 

 came from eggs protected from rapid changes of water by a 



