EEPOKT OF COMMISSIONEE OF FISH AND FISHERIES. LXXXIX 



Island, to the ripraps in Chesapeake Bay, with the loss of only two or 

 three individuals. It is hoped that future reports may contain a fur- 

 ther history of this experiment. 



V. The_ Oyster (Osirea virginica). 



Experiments with the eggs and embryos of the common oyster {Os- 

 trea virginica) were carried on for the season of 1882 at the experimental 

 station on Saint Jerome Creek, Maryland, by Col. M. McDonald and J. 

 A. Eyder, under the auspices of the U. S. Fish Commission. Other ex- 

 periments were also conducted at Beaufort, N. C, by Francis Winslow, 

 U. S. N., and Prof. W. K. Brooks, while Mr, Henry J. Eice made in- 

 vestigations in Mr. E. G. Blackford's laboratory. Pulton Market, li^rew 

 York City. Mr. Eice has since then published his results in Forest and 

 Stream and in the thirteenth biennial report of the commissioners of 

 fisheries of the State of ISTew York. His laboratory experiments made 

 upon a limited scale involved the use of two vessels; one as a supply 

 reservoir for the water used in the incubation of the eggs, and another 

 .vessel used as a receptacle in which the young oysters were success- 

 fully confined. Bands of flannel were used as capillary conductors of 

 the water from the supply reservoir to the hatching-box, and a similar 

 band was used to carry the water from the latter into an outside reser- 

 voir. By means of such an apparatus the experimenter was enabled to 

 keep the young oysters, placed in the vessel, alive for fourteen days. 

 Certain improvements in this apparatus made afterwards have ren- 

 dered it more perfectly adapted to the purpose for which it is designed, 

 that is, the outlet pipe has been so arranged as to prevent the escape 

 of the whole of the water from the hatching-box, and in such a way as 

 to make the method available in the construction of large ponds for the 

 artificial rearing of the oyster. 



Mr. Eyder left Washington with the U. S. Fish Commission steamer 

 Fish Hawk in June, 1882, but did not begin any actual experiment until 

 July 3 following. In the course of his investigations in 1882, in co- 

 operation with Colonel McDonald, it was found to be possible to carry 

 young oysters, which had been reared from artificially fertilized eggs 

 to the condition of fixation, twenty-four hours after fertilization, as he 

 has already reported in a paper entitled "An account of experiments in 

 oyster culture and observations relating thereto (second series)," and 

 published in the report of the U. S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries 

 for 1882. These experiments led to the attempts made in 1883, which 

 have resulted in the demonstration of the fact that oyster spat can be 

 reared from artificially impregnated eggs, as was shown experimentally 

 at Stockton, Md., during last season on the premises of Messrs. Shepard 

 and Pierce, these gentlemen generously bearing the expense of the con- 

 struction of the pond in which the experiments were conducted under 

 the supervision of Mr. Eyder. 



The results of the Stockton experiments have been fully described in 



