310 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



Mr. Blackford's office a short time ago when a six- 

 pound eel with spawn was brought for examination, 

 Mr. Mather proposed a computation of the eggs. He 

 took the ovary home. Under the microscope the eggs 

 appear to be of an octagonal form, but this is due whol- 

 ly to their pressing upon one another ; when separated 

 they assume the globular form. The use of the mi- 

 crometer failed to give satisfactory results because the 

 eggs varied greatly in size. Mr. Mather therefore 

 placed a number in line, measured and counted them, 

 and found them to average 80 to the inch. Then he 

 took the whole mass of eggs, halved, quartered, and 

 further divided, seventeen times in all, until the section 

 small enough to count represented 1-131,072 of the 

 total number. The count showed 68 eggs, or 8,912,- 

 896 in the whole. A second computation in the same 

 way showed 77 eggs in the counted mass, or 10,092,544 

 altogether. And to make the computation still more 

 certain, a third count was made, which showed 71 eggs 

 in the last division, or 9,306,112 in the whole ovaries. 

 From these results Mr. Mather fixes the number of 

 eggs in this particular eel at fully nine millions.'' 



The eel goes to salt water to breed, and while we do 

 not know how its eggs are deposited, we know that it 

 passes through a larval state, the very young having 

 been considered to be a distinct animal by the older 

 naturalists. 



TABLE OF THE NUMBER OF EGGS IN VARIOUS FISHES. 



The following is taken from the "Manual of Fish- 

 culture" of the United States Fish Commission, omit- 

 ting such fishes as have little importance, or whose 



