HATCHING: ITS MEANING. 171 



perhaps you can enlighten me. In speaking of 

 the ova of the Salmonidse, when describing the 

 production of the young fish, you have used the 

 term hatching. Pray is it in the same sense as 

 you would employ it, were you describing the 

 chick breaking out from the imprisoning egg- 

 shell ? the word, as I understand it, meaning, in 

 its radical sense, to break, and the chick in ovo 

 effecting the breaking by means of its sharp- 

 pointed, hammer-like, hard beak, by a process 

 of repeated tapping a capital instance surely 

 of instinctive action, and of a natural provision 

 in such a beak for accomplishing it, especially 

 considering that the hard horny point is cast 

 off after it has done its work, that is, when 

 the chick is at large. 



PISCATOR. I use the term in the same sense ; 

 for the egg-shell of the Salmonidae and, I believe, 

 of fish generally, is ruptured by the efforts of 

 the young fish acting instinctively, somewhat, 

 though not exactly, after the same manner as 

 that practised by the chick in ovo. 



AMICUS. How is it accomplished ? I should 

 like to know ! Pray, tell me ; for these first 

 efforts of animals seem to me peculiarly inte- 

 resting as pure examples of instinct. 



