TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 49 
EXPERIMENTS IN OYSTER PROPAGA FION,. 
BY H, J. RICE, SC. D. 
During the past three or four: years a number of efforts have 
been made by different individuals to ascertain the practicability of 
propagating the American oyster (Ostrea virginiana) by methods 
similar to those already so successfully employed with a large 
number of both fresh and salt water fishes, or, in other words, 
to assist ‘‘ Dame Nature,” first, in giving an existence to a greater 
number of embryo bivalves than would be found under ordinary 
conditions, and, secondly, in bringing to maturity a goodly pro- 
portion of those “immigrants ” which, if not “assisted” during 
their rotation for existence, would inevitably, as the Germans so 
forcibly express it, ‘zu grunde gehen.” This expression, how- 
ever, of ‘assisting nature,” ought not to be misunderstood, 
since nature has many ends to accomplish in her methods of 
increase among the lower tribes, while for mau there is but the 
one end-—to supply raw material to recuperate the ranks so 
incessantly and ruthlessly devastated for his use, and it is with 
this end in view, and by reason of the rapid deterioration of the 
productive beds in various parts of the country, that artificial 
propagation is desirable, if it can be rendered practical. The 
first work in the direction of strict orthodox oyster propagation, 
so far as 1am aware, was performed by the writer in the summer of 
1878, at the Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory at Fort Wool, in 
conjunction with Dr. Brooks, the director of the station. The work 
at this time was confined chiefly to ascertaining whether or not 
it was possible to impregnate the eggs of the oyster by taking 
portions of the generative organs of the two sexes and mixing 
them together in a little water, after having cut them into frag- 
ments, so as to allow the generative products to get out of the 
retaining cavities or tubules. But this attempt did not prove 
successful, neither did those which I made later in the season, 
when I had moved my quarter in conjunction with the U.S. 
Coast Survey, to Pocomoke and Tangiers Sounds, in the upper 
part of the bay. 
In both places numbers of experiments were made, but we 
