The Activity of the Spermatozoa of Salmo Salar in Relation to Osmotic Pressure

Artificial insemination of trout eggs gives a higher proportion of fertilized eggs than natural fertilization. This paradoxical fact is explained by the very brief time of activity of the sperm in river water (Gray, 1920). Huxley (1930) showed that the activity of trout sperm is increased in various salt solutions, and concluded that the trout “though somatically fully adapted to fresh-water life, is very imperfectly adapted in its reproduction, its sperms being many times more efficient in a medium intermediate between its present and its ancestral environment”.