30 AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 



coating of dead eggs and fungus, which, by the time the interior 

 eggs were hatched, was a most foul and filthy mass, really unfit 

 for a visitor to look at, for he would not have believed that a 

 fish could issue from it. 



To complete this experience it will be necessary to say that 

 Mr. Ricardo wished to try an experiment in transporting smelt 

 eggs, and one morning brought to Mr. Blackford some twenty 

 thousand eggs, taken on grass, sewed on muslin stretched on a 

 wire frame, and packed in moss. This lot was placed in a 

 hatching trough in swift water the night after receiving, and 

 when removed at about the time of hatching to a glass tank, 

 some twenty fish came out, a result not encouraging to that 

 mode of packing. He afterward sent me eighty thousand fry by 

 express in a ten-gallon can, which was twelve hours on the way 

 without attention, but they arrived dead. It is his belief, and I 

 understand that it is shared by Prof. Rice, that the fry need no 

 change. I am not prepared to accept this view, which if true is 

 singular, for the fish hatch in swift brooks. 



—Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. 



Mr. Lyman: The results of Mr. Mather's experiments regard- 

 ing the protection of eggs against the action of water, appear to 

 me somewhat novel. Perhaps some gentleman would like to 

 make some observations, or relate experiments of a kindred 

 nature which he may have conducted. 



Mr. H. J. Rice: In regard to the work of Mr. Atkins and 

 myself it may be well to state that just before beginning opera- 

 tions at New Brunswick, a letter was received from Mr. Atkins 

 detailing briefly his method and amount of success in his work 

 in Maine and my work at New Brunswick, followed to a certain 

 extent his experiments, modified very largely, of course, by the 

 diiferent conditions of our more southern locality. Some of his 

 methods for gathering and holding the spawn I found to answer 

 very well, but I misunderstood some of his writing and was 

 under the impression that he had not been successful, but found 

 out afterward in conversation with him, that he had hatched out 

 quite a large number of the eggs with which he was experiment- 



