28 THETARPON 



I submit that one is safe in concluding that the 

 tarpon breed in many places widely remote, for the 

 facts disclose that very young fish are found in 

 Florida, Porto Rico, Cuba, Aransas Pass and Lake 

 Nicaragua. 



Although I have written scores of letters to oflScials, 

 societies and anglers at many places I have not been 

 able to gather more than the data here set forth. 



While fishing at Boca Grande on June 5th, 1921, I 

 captured a female tarpon which weighed 142 pounds 

 and was 6' 8" long. The ovaries were full of immature 

 eggs and were carefully dissected out of the fish after 

 being measured. They were 28" in length and about 

 3" in diameter in the thickest parts. I enclosed them 

 in two glass jars partially filled with the formalin 

 solution and sent them to Mr. Nichols of the American 

 Museum of Natural History for his examination and 

 deductions. Mr. Nichols found that the gross weight 

 of these eggs, including the membranes enclosing 

 them, was 82% ounces. He caused a portion of an 

 ounce of eggs to be counted and found that there 

 were 163,840 eggs per ounce. After deducting 10% 

 for the weight of the membranes in the mass it is evi- 

 dent that this fish contained approximately 12,201,984 

 eggs. While the estimation was not exact it is safe to 

 say that a large female carries over ten million eggs. 

 If each egg had developed into a fish as large as the 

 parent the sea would have been enriched with 866,340 

 tons of tarpon. Such is the prodigality of nature ! 



In my trip of 1920 to the same locality I examined 

 the eggs from nine females taken from June 5th to 



