TAKING THE EGGS. 1 1 I 



In consequence of the discovery that all mature eggs 

 are impregnated by coming in contact with ripe milt, 

 the fish, both male and female, being taken at random, 

 we are compelled to admit, however unwillingly, that 

 the origin offish life, in artificial impregnation at least, 

 is wholly a mechanical affair. The mere mechanical 

 mixing of the ripe milt of any male and the ripe eggs 

 of any female creates the germ of life, and perpetuates 

 the race, all previous considerations of pairing off 

 among the fish, or of this or that one selecting its mate, 

 counting for nothing. The fish of either sex has no 

 choice and no knowledge as to the individual through 

 whom its progeny shall be generated. The female 

 fish may become a mother without ever having seen 

 her mate, and the male may become the father of in- 

 numerable offspring without ever having seen the 

 mother. Whatever margin of uncertainty the un im- 

 pregnated eggs of the old system might have afforded 

 for the conjecture that empty eggs were the conse- 

 quence of mismating on the part of the fish, or rather 

 of the manipulator, there is none left now. Mechani- 

 cal contact of eggs and milt, indiscriminately taken, 

 produces all the results that mutual affection and 

 choice of mates could accomplish. There is now no 

 possible place left for sentiment in the connubial rela- 

 tions of trout that are artificially spawned. 



There are also two practical advantages incidentally 

 connected with this Russian discovery, and with these 

 I will close this discussion of its consequences. One 

 of these advantages is that the operator need not feel 

 obliged to hurry through the impregnation process, as 



