ON THE HATCHING OF THE WASTE OVA 
OF THE MARKETS. 
In the early part of this year we endeavoured to test an interest- 
ing point in the problem of fish-hatching, viz. — how far is it possible 
to utilize the ripe fish which are brought into the market for 
hatching purposes? 
Mr. Storey had some difficulty in getting the fish that we required, 
and I can only report on two trials. They refer to cod spawn. In 
the first case the ovaries were simply torn up from evidently a fish 
which was not quite ripe, and besides had been dead for perhaps a 
day. Though mixed with milt from a male fish it was not surpris- 
ing to find that fertilization had not been effected. The ova did not 
stir from the bottom. 
The second lot was more successful. The ova were stripped 
from a ripe and living or recently dead cod, and successfully 
fertilized on the 9th April. The floating ova were afterwards seen 
to be going on all right. Many of them died, but a few were 
successfully hatched, and considering the meagre supply of water 
we had reason to be thankful. 
I should be very glad in the coming season to make fresh trials 
with living fish, and fish which have been dead for a short period. 
Hatching, as you now know, is becoming a question of great import- 
ance. We have two hatcheries in this country. The ova for 
hatching are usually obtained from adult fishes, which are caught 
and retained in spawning ponds until they are ripe. Millions of little 
fry are thus obtained, and hatched and returned to the sea every 
year, to be added to the already large number contributed by the 
ordinary processes. It would not require very many fish after all 
to supply in nature the ova and fry furnished by even all the 
hatcheries already established. And it requires a great many more 
fish to produce this quantity of eggs in confinement than it does in 
a condition of nature. It is hoped to keep such fish in the ponds 
from year to year, but in obtaining them we actually join in what 
is causing the deterioration of the fisheries, and it is reasonable to 
suppose that a fair proportion of them if they had been left in the 
sea would have survived to have propagated their species even more 
