14 FISH-CULTURAL. ASSOCIATION. 
the pan into a jar, the same thing occurred, and you could see 
the upper line of the eggs ahout half way up the jar. When 
placed in the McDonald hatching jars, they acted like white- 
fish eggs, except that they were a little lighter. The moment the 
circulation of the water stopped, they all sank to the bottom. 
I confess to having been somewhat skeptical about ‘“ floating 
eggs’ of cod-fish, although I understand from Professor Ryder 
and Colonel McDonald, that at Gloucester the eggs actually 
floated on the surface, resembling in appearance a honey-comb, 
and that they were so buoyant that a portion of the egg would 
literally stand out of the water. I attributed the failure to 
impregnate the eggs taken at Fulton Market, to the shock 
which the fish suffers by being thrown into the cars from the 
fishing smacks. They are cast from the deck to the surface of 
the water, a distance of from four to six feet, and usually strike 
on ‘their bellies... The, cod egg. is exceedingly delicate; and 
breaks like a soap-bubble at a touch. 
Col. McDona tp: The fish from which the eggs at Wood’s Holl 
were taken, were, as faras I know, handled very carefully, being 
transferred from the smack to the car with as little violence as 
possible. But may not the difference in the results of the obser- 
vations made at Wood’s Holl and Fulton Market, be explained 
by a difference in the density of the water at the two places? 
Of course the buoyancy of the cod egg depends upon the dens- 
ity of the water in which it is placed. Now at Wood’s Holl, ’ 
where the water opens out to the ocean, it surely must be much 
more dense than at New York harbor, and the effect of this 
difference upon the eggs is clearly proved by the fact that those 
eggs which floated at Wood’s Holl sank at New York. In 
regard to the eggs taken at New York, they were sent on in 
hermetically sealed jars to Washington, where on arrival they 
were found to be impregnated and a small proportion develop- 
ing. They were then put into salt water artificially prepared, 
(5 oz. of salt to the gallon of water). Development went on, I 
think, for fifteen or sixteen days until the embryo was moving 
and the heart beating, and yet after all we did not succeed in 
hatching them. Up to that time their development, I believe, 
