16 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
\ 
the agent will perform its part only when associated with vigi- 
lance, persistence and zeal on the part of the operator. 
Having had occasion, during the past season, to make certain 
experiments in the direction of dislodging and exterminating this 
undesirable form of vegetation, which had secured too firm a 
hold in certain tanks and upon certain animals and fishes in the 
laboratory at Fulton Market, New York, I determined to try the 
effect of the continued use of a strong solution of salt, and to 
note carefully the results. The work was thus merely supple- 
mental to what has already been done in this direction, and, so 
far as it goes, corroborative of such previous efforts. The 
animals upon which I experimented, personally, were goldfish of 
the Japanese variety, black bass and specimens of Mecturus later- 
alts, or the mud puppy. I also induced Mr. Geo. Ricardo, fish 
warden of Bergen County, N. J., to undertake some experiments 
as to the efficacy of salt in destroying the fungus which col- 
lects so plentifully upon the trays and bunches of eggs in the 
smelt hatching operations. The experiments with the goldfish 
were begun during the month of January, and continued several 
months. The specimens operated upon were from a lot brought 
over from Japan and China in December by Capt. Jones, of the 
steamer Oxfordshire, and placed immediately upon their arrival 
in tanks of running water at the stand of Commissioner E. G, 
Blackford in Fulton Market. The fish had been very severely 
handled during their ocean voyage, many of them having large 
numbers of the scales knocked from their sides, evidently from 
being thrown against the sides of their vessel as the steamer 
struggled in the rolling waves. 
From this cause, and undoubtedly also from the fact that the 
water into which they were placed was too cold for their 
warmth-loving constitution, they commenced to die, one by one, 
within a day or two of their landing on our shores. Those that 
died first were hardly more than still before the velvet-like plush 
of the saprolegnia spotted their bodies or fins, or in some cases, 
literally enveloped them ina robe of white. Soon not only the 
dead, but the living were similarly decorated, and it became 
evident very quickly that if something was not done the sapro- 
legnia would, before long, claim them all its victims, although it 
