92 PLANS FOE EXPORTING SALMON OVA. 



some for carrying out the young fish in tanks, and others for 

 taking out the fructified ova, so that the process of hatching 

 might be carried on during the voyage. One ingenious person 

 promulgated a plan of taking the parr in a fresh-water tank a 

 month or two before it changed into a smolt, saying that after 

 the change it would be easy to keep the smolts supplied with 

 fresh salt water direct firom the sea as the ship proceeded on her 

 voyage. 



The mode ultimately adopted was to pack up the ova in a 

 bed of ice, experiments having first been made with a view to 

 test the plan. For that purpose a large number of ova were 

 deposited iu an ice-house in order to ascertain how long the 

 ripening of the egg could be deferred — a condition of the ex- 

 periment of course being that the egg should remain quite 

 healthy. The Wenham Lake Ice Company were so obliging as 

 to allow boxes containing salmon and trout ova, packed in moss, 

 to be placed in their ice-vaults, and to afibrd every facility for 

 the occasional examination of the eggs. Satisfactory results 

 being obtained — in other words, it having been proved that the 

 eggs of the salmon could with perfect safety be kept in ice for a 

 period exceeding the average time of a voyage to Australia — it 

 was therefore resolved that a quantity of eggs, properly packed 

 in ice, should be sent out. The result of this experiment is now 

 well known, most of the daily papers having chronicled the suc- 

 cessful exportation of the ova, and announced that the fish had 

 come to life and were thriving in their foreign home. 



The naturalisation of fish, to which a brief reference has 

 already been made, is a subject that is not very well understood ; 

 but so far as practical experience goes, I have seen nothing to 

 prevent our breeding in England some of the most productive 

 foreign kinds. We must not, however, build ourselves much 

 on the acclimatisation of foreign fish, especially tropical fish, 

 as — although fish can bear great extremes of temperature — it 

 would be no easy matter to habituate them to our climate. 



