SALMON OVA. 6 1 



down to the sea every spring in April, and of which, 

 numerically, only a very few ever return as adult fish, 

 and that, numerous as are their natural enemies in the 

 rivers, we may suppose they are equally numerous in 

 the ocean. Seeing this vast destruction of the fish 

 bred upon a fish farm to supply requisite food for the 

 same species, what are the remedies to be applied? 

 Cattle and sheep consume the produce of the earth ; 

 they are vegetarians, and may be multiplied and in- 

 creased by the cultivation of the land ; but the fishes 

 of the sea and rivers provide their own food, they live 

 by devouring each other, and are fed upon their own 

 redundant powers of reproduction, which supply the 

 wants of their race, leaving some only to escape to 

 perpetuate their species, and out of these man also 

 takes his share. 



According to my friend Mons. Coste's calculations, 

 a salmon carries 1,000 ova to every pound of her 

 weight. 1 may here state that in September, 1863, 

 I obtained the roe or ova of nine salmon from Mr. 

 Hayllar, Brighton ; these nine fish weighed 1JO| Ibs. 

 exclusive of the roe, which weighed 1^9^ ounces. I 

 then enumerated the quantity contained in one ounce 

 of the ova of each fish, and ascertained the number of 

 ova to each pound in weight of fish to be only 650, 

 instead of 1,000. This I give as the result of a care- 

 ful investigation, but I found a great want of uni- 

 formity both in the weight of the roe and in the rela- 

 tive number of ova produced in different fish, as some 

 produced a greater weight with a less relative num- 

 ber; from which we may assume that all salmon do 

 not produce a similar quantity, and that the ova does 

 not all become matured at the same time. We may 

 assume that the average number procured fiom these 

 nine fish may be a fair aporoximation to the general 

 average, the result being 650 ova per pound in weight ; 

 one fish contained 1,332 ova to the pound in weight, 



