118 Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting 
Mr. Titcomb: There is where the value of this seale comes 
in. When we once get the scale established we can take the pike- 
perch eggs at Dr. Bean’s Lake and find they measure a certain 
diameter ; take the eggs at Northville and find they measure an- 
other diameter; and we start a field station at Saginaw Bay and 
we find still another diameter. Now we can in a very few 
minutes, establish a diameter by taking a number of series of 
eges from the various lots and thus determine the number of 
eggs to the quart in each instance and the very variation of the 
diameter of eggs of the same species is one of the features that 
makes this plan of measurement important. If we could say 
that pike-perch eggs run so many to the quart all over the 
country, we could get that established by counts from a dozen 
hatcheries and that would be the end of it; and here we go out 
to a new field and get the number of eggs to the quart from that 
chart in five minutes. You simply measure the number of eggs 
to the inch by means of the trough and the chart does the rest. 
President: So that the use of this little chart scale is the 
essential thing’ after all. 
Mr. Titcomb: It is very important. 
Prof. Reighard: I was interested in what was said in regard 
to separating the dead eggs from the living; I would like to ask 
Mr. 'Titcomb whether the reason for the floating of the dead eggs 
in the salt solution has been made out? Is it due to the develop- 
ment of gas in the eggs through decay so that the dead ones 
float and the good ones sink ? 
Mr. Titcomb: I do not think it has been worked out to that 
extent. We assumed that the dead eggs immediately begin to 
decay and naturally the specific gravity becomes less than that 
of the live eggs. 
Prof. Reighard: It occurs to me, that if that is the reason, 
possibly the method might be improved by waiting for that decay 
to proceed a little further. That is to say, if at a certain time 
you can separate 75 per cent of the dead eggs by means of a sali 
solution, by waiting a little longer time for the decay to take 
place, if it did not injure the living eggs, it would enable you to 
separate all dead eggs from living eggs. 
