34 



attached to them. They varied from two and three 

 fourths to five inches in length, some of them showing 

 considerable growth. This proves that Atlantic oysters 

 can be transplanted to the Pacific and remain healthy 

 and grow. Upon reaching home I proceeded to examine 

 some of the oysters and it turned out that only one had 

 already spawned while the other fifteen were ripe and 

 generally somewhat distended with eggs or sperm. 

 This proves that the transplanted oysters can come to 

 maturity and ripen the reproductive elements. 



At 7.10 P. M. of the same day I put together eggs and 

 sperm in a tumbler of sea-water and at 7 A. M. next 

 morning there was an abundance of segmentation stages 

 and free-swimming larva?. This proves that the oysters 

 can spawn and that the eggs can develop into young. 1 

 make these statements because of a prevailing opinion 

 that the transplanted oysters have all died, and the few 

 people who think there are still some living are dogmatic 

 in their assertion that they do not breed. 



Plankton taken at intervals at Hammond and Nanoose 

 Bays had not yielded any oyster larva 1 , which became ex- 

 plainable upon finding the condition of the reproductive 

 organs. A further observation on this was afforded on 

 the 26th of July, when I examined a second lot (obtained 

 at a very low tide the day before) from Nanoose Bay. 

 The forty-seventh oyster examined was the first to yield 

 good ripe eggs — all previous ones were spawned with the 

 exception of four or five which were ripe males. The 

 interval between these two visits had been the hottest of 

 the summer and the oysters had nearly all spawned in 

 this period — slightly later than is usual on the Atlantic. 

 On the 27th I made a trip to Oyster Harbor (Ladysmith), 

 about fifteen miles from here, where I had better luck in 

 getting track of the few transplanted oysters. In a 

 similar way I examined several individuals and took 

 plankton which for the first time contained larva? of the 

 Atlantic oyster — recognizable by their shape and meas- 

 urements but not presenting such a deep pink or brown 



