82 
BULLETIN OP THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
diminish somewhat the large and constantly increasing quantity of viscid slime. At 
10.30 a. m. the fertilized eggs were transferred to hatching-boxes, four of which were 
j)laced in the Eiver Stdr, where there was a moderately strong current, and where the 
temperature of the water was about 17° Eeaumur. One hatching-box, containing a 
small quantity of eggs, was moored in a ditch containing water at a temperature of 
18° Eeaumur. The several hatching-boxes in the Eiver Stor were supplied with 
different quantities of eggs in order to determine how many could best be kept to- 
gether. 
The formation of the embryos in the eggs could be seen distinctly with the aid of 
a magnifying glass at 8 p. m., July 17. At 9 a. m. on the 18th, the embryos were ob- 
served to be moving about in the eggs, and at 1 p. m., of the same day, the tails of 
several protruded from the eggs and were actively in motion, although the head was 
still within the egg. On the evening of this day the embryos could be numbered by 
the thousands. 
On the morning of July 18, the live ones were removed to another empty hatching- 
box, which, like the former boxes, was floated in a moderately strong current. On 
the morning of July 19, about 9 o’clock, a good many little fish had entirely released 
their heads, and were swimming about in the box, the egg still forming the central 
part of the body. From that time on the egg gradually changed, the central portion 
of the body of the embryo still developing within it, until it disappeared almost 
entirely, and was hanging from the lower side of the fish, being reduced in size to that 
of a grain of mustard. July 23, the young fish were completely developed; and on 
the 25th two-thirds of them, about 50,000 to 60,000 in number, were conveyed from 
Beidenfleth to Itzehoe, and placed in the Eiver Stor. The remaining one third was 
retained in the hatching-box at Beidenfleth, in order to observe the further growth of 
the young fish. 
It appears, from this experiment, that seventy-two hours after impregnation the 
embryo can be seen in the egg; that the tail portion is released seventy-eight hours 
after impregnation ; the head one hundred hours after, and that two hundred hours 
after impregnation the young fish are so far advanced that they can be set free in open 
water. 
REPORT OF OPERATIONS DURING 1885 .* 
[From “ Ninth AunualReport of the Central Fisliery Association of Schleswig-Holstein”Rendsburg, 1886.] 
In the year 1885 our association received 500 marks [$119] for the puriiose of aid- 
ing our eli'orts in sturgeon-culture; and the board of directors promised to do every 
thing inits power to that end. Tiie writer was commissioned to take charge of this work, 
and in the spring went to Hamburg for the purpose of arranging with the owners of 
the large sturgeon establishments on the Elbe, to supply the sturgeon necessary for 
obtaining the roe and milt, which all of them promised to do. I next visited Twielen- 
fleth, Kollmar and Gliickstadt, in order to secure the services of two men to take 
charge of the proposed sturgeon-hatching. In Twieleufleth I found Mr. Koser, and in 
Kollmar Mr. Lau, both of whom expressed a great interest in the matter, and would 
By B. Elsuer, 
