Unlike many other fishes, the goldfish exercise no care or solicitude for their eggs when they 

 have once been laid, but on the contrary promptly devour them if permitted to do so. It is therefore 

 necessary to remove either the parents or the eggs to another pond. When the eggs are to be 

 transferred from one pond to another for hatching, the bundles of roots or the plants containing 

 them are gently washed in clear running water, and carefully placed in the hatching ponds. In 

 order to prevent the eggs from becoming crowded or smothered, the bundles of roots are some- 

 times tied on a rope at regular intervals and arranged in rows. Having regard for the accommoda- 

 tion of the fry during the days immediately after hatching, the proper number of eggs for a 

 cement pond with an area of 100 square feet is 50,000 to 60,000. 



The different varieties of goldfish produce about the same number of eggs when fish of the 

 same size and age are considered. At Koriyama, the oranda will lay approximately 2,000 eggs 

 when two years old, 25,000 eggs when three years old, and 70,000 eggs when four and five years 

 old. The eggs in different parts of the ovaries do not ripen at the same time, and the spawning 

 period for a given fish is thus quite prolonged. Individual fish deposit from three to ten lots of 

 eggs at intervals of eight to ten days. The first batch of eggs is the best, the last is the worst and 

 is likely to produce weak fry. 



The goldfish egg when first deposited has a slightly wrinkled and loose outer covering, but owing 

 to the fact that it immediately begins to absorb water it quickly assumes a perfectly spherical shape 

 and the limiting membrane becomes smooth and tense. The average diameter of the fertilized egg 

 is .0625 inch, and the number in a pint is about 137,500. A viable egg is transparent and colorless or 

 slightly yellowish, but an unfertilized egg soon becomes milky and opaque. 



The only attention the eggs require is to see that they are covered with water, are not becoming 



59 



