female fish weighing from two to three ounces. This quantity of 
eggs is produced in a single season, so that the total number spawned 
during the life of a fish reaching an age of fifteen or twenty years 
must indeed be enormous. 
SPAWNING. 
While spawning takes place in the spring, the exact time varies 
with the place, being earlier at the south than at the north—during 
April and May in the bay of Fundy, during May and June in the 
southern part of the gulf of St. Lawrence, and as late as July on the 
coast of Newfoundland. There is even a difference of time depend- 
ing upon the depth at which the fishes live, those in shallower water 
spawning earlier, because the warming effect of the coming of 
spring reaches the bottom water earlier where the depths are slight. 
There is nothing to show that the plaice gather together in 
particular spots to spawn, but rather that the eggs and milt are 
shed into the water wherever the fishes happen to be at the time. 
The eggs, which do not cling together but float separately, are 
fertilized by the entrance into each one of a minute sperm from the 
milt of the male. When shed they are only from one-twenty-fifth 
to one-twentieth of an inch in diameter, but in a short time by the 
entrance of a large amount of water into the space between the egg 
proper and the delicate covering or membrane surrounding it they 
.become twice as large. They rise from the bottom, where they 
have escaped from the female fish, to the upper layers of the water 
where they undergo development, floating at the surface if the water 
is heavy or some distance below it if the surface water is light from 
having little salt. As they develop they become heavier and sink 
somewhat in the water, for in the waters between Cape Breton and 
the Magdalen islands we found the majority of those ready to 
hatch floating at a depth of about ten fathoms below the surface 
while the eggs recently laid were near the top of the water. 
DEVELOPMENT. 
When the egg, which is largely yolk, begins to develop, the 
living matter collects at one side and forms a little cap (see figure 
5a), making that side heavier so that it is always underneath. The 
14 
