of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



107 



March 3. — A slide of lie. was examined on this date. The eggs were 

 nearly all dead ; a few live eggs appeared here and there among the dead. 

 One egg was in a backward condition ; the blastoderm covered only two- 

 thirds of the yolk (fig. 29). The long crystals were present. 



March 5. — The eggs of Ic. did not show much advance on the stage of 

 March 2. The tail had not begun to project yet (fig. 30). The eye can be 

 faintly made out. The live eggs of lie. and IIIc. were in a somewhat 

 similar condition. One of the latter showed the tail just starting free (fig. 

 31). The eyes, although probably present, were not made out; the dirty 

 condition of the zona tended to prevent complete examination. A plate of 

 each lot was examined, and in the case of Ic. and IIIc. a few live eggs were 

 found, while in the plate of lie. all were dead. In the plate of Ic., where 

 the eggs were in two layers, the under layer next the glass sometimes con- 

 tained several live eggs. Where the eggs were in a single layer, an 

 occasional live egg only was noticed. 



March 9. — The stages reached by the eggs of Ic. are represented in figs. 

 32 and 33. The former exhibits a small free tail. 



March 11. — The average condition of the eggs of Ic. on this date is given 

 in fig. 34. One was noticed a little further advanced, the tail being slightly 

 longer. The eggs of IIIc. were distinctly further on (fig. 35). 



March 13. — A live egg of Ic. showed the condition exhibited in fig. 36. 



March 16. — The egg of lie. had the tail beginning to project. 



March 18. — In IIIc. one or two of the eggs were found in which the tail 

 projected a little. One of these was left overnight in a glass cell in the 

 Laboratory. Next day it had developed to the stage shown in fig. 37. 

 The heart was beating gently and slowly. Very many of the eggs of Ic. 

 and IIIc. were dead. The live eggs were few in number, and were imbedded 

 among the dead eggs. 



March 24. — One of the plates of Ic. had no live eggs on it. Some of the 

 eggs seemed to have died recently. In one of the dead eggs the tip of the 

 tail reached to the head. Many oi the dead eggs were covered with small 

 circular white patches (fig. 38). They could be removed along with the 

 outer layer of the egg-shell. An enlarged drawing of a portion of one of 

 these masses is shown in fig. 57. The organisms of which the masses were 

 composed are . shown in figs. 39-46. They probably only grow on the 

 matter which exudes from a dead egg through the pores in the zona. 



March 29. — The last remaining plate of lie. was examined. All the eggs 

 were dead. 



March 31. — Some eggs of Ic. which were scraped off one of the plates 

 were dead. 



April 2. — No fry was seen in Ic. 



April 8. — A plate of Ic. showed no live eggs. The eggs were covered 

 with the white patches mentioned above. 



April 9. — Another plate of Ic. was examined. No live egg was found. 

 Most of the eggs had died lately, some at the closure of the blastopore. 

 All the eggs on a plate of IIIc. were dead. One of the eggs contained a 

 dead fully-formed larva with black pigmented eyes. 



April 10. — On scraping the eggs off a plate of Ic. one egg was obtained 

 containing what appeared to be a live embryo (fig. 47). The embryo was 

 transparent and had black pigmented eyes. I did not, however, see the 

 heart beat, nor was the embryo observed to move. It w T as kept till next 

 day, when it came opaque, a certain indication of death. A number of dead 

 larvae was released from the eggs when the plate was scraped. In some of 

 these the tail reached to the auditory capsule. 



So far as I am aware, no fry was hatched from any of these three lots in 

 cooled water. 



