FISH CULTURE.
Antiquity of Pisciculture—Italian Fish-Culture—Sergius
Orata—Re-discovery of the Art—Gehin and Remy—Jacobi—Shaw of
Drumlanrig—The Ettrick Shepherd—Scientific and Commercial
Pisciculture—A Trip to Huningue—Tourist Talk about Fish—Bale—Huningue
described—The Water Supply—_Modus Operandi_ at Huningue—Packing
Fish Eggs—An Important Question—Artificial Spawning—Danube
Salmon—Statistics of Huningue—Plan of a Suite of Ponds—M. De Galbert’s
Establishment—Practical Nature of Pisciculture—Turtle-Culture—Best
Kinds of Fish to Rear—Pisciculture in Germany—Stormontfield
Salmon-Breeding Ponds—Design for a Suite of Salmon-Ponds—Statistics
of Stormontfield—Acclimatisation of Fish—The Australian
Experiment—Introduction of the _Silurus glanis_.
Pisciculture may be briefly described as the art of fecundating and
hatching fish-eggs, and of nursing young fish under protection till
they are of an age to take care of themselves.
The art of pisciculture is almost as old as civilisation itself. We
read of its having been practised in the empire of China for many
centuries, and we also know that it was much thought of in the palmy
days of ancient Italy, when expensively-fed fish of all kinds were
a necessity of the wonderful banquets given by wealthy Romans and
Neapolitans. There is still in China a large trade in fish-eggs, and
boats may be seen containing men who gather the spawn in various
rivers, and then carry it into the interior of the country for sale,
where the young fish are reared in great flocks or shoals in the
rice-fields. One Chinese mode of collecting fish-spawn is to map out
a river into compartments by means of mats and hurdles, leaving only
a passage for the boats. The mats and hurdles intercept the spawn,
which is skimmed off the water, preserved for sale in large jars, and
is bought by persons who have ponds or other pieces of water which
they may wish to stock with gold or other fish. One Chinese plan is to
hatch fish-eggs in paddy-fields, and in these places the spawn speedily
comes to life, and the flocks of little fishes are herded from one
field to another as the food becomes exhausted. The trade in ova is
so well managed, even in the present day, that fish are plentiful and
cheap—so cheap as to form a large portion of the food of the people;
and nothing so much surprises the Chinese who come here as the high
price that is paid for the fish of this country. A Chinese fisherman
was much astonished, three years ago, at the price he was charged for a
fish-breakfast at Toulon. This person had arrived in France with four
or five thousand young fish of the best kinds produced in his country,
for the purpose of their being placed in the great marine aquarium in
the Bois de Boulogne. Being annoyed at the comparative scarcity of
fish in France, the young Chinaman wrote a brief memoir, showing that,
with the command of a small pond, any quantity of fish might be raised
at a trifling expense. All that is necessary, he stated in the memoir
alluded to, is to watch the period of spawning, and throw yolks of
eggs into the water from time to time, by which means an incredible
quantity of the young fry are saved from destruction. For, according
to the information conveyed by this very intelligent youth, thousands
of young fish annually die from starvation—they are unable to seek
their own food at so tender an age. We cannot believe all the stories
we hear about the Chinese mode of breeding fish, they are so evidently
exaggerated; but I must notice one particularly ingenious method of
artificial hatching which has been resorted to by the people of China
and which is worth noting as a piscicultural novelty. These ingenious
Celestials carry on a business in selling and hatching fish-spawn,
collecting the impregnated eggs from various rivers and lakes, in
order to sell to the proprietors of canals and private ponds. When the
proper season for hatching arrives, they empty a hen’s egg, by means
of a small aperture, sucking out the natural contents, and then, after
substituting fish-spawn, close up the opening. The egg thus manipulated
is placed for a few days under a hen! By and by the shell is broken,
and the contents are placed in a vessel of water, warmed by the heat
of the sun only; the eggs speedily burst, and in a short time the
young fish are able to be transported to a lake or river of ordinary
temperature, where they are of course left to grow to maturity without
being further noticed than to have a little food thrown to them.
The luxurious Romans achieved great wonders in the art of
fish-breeding, and were able to perform curious experiments with the
piscine inhabitants of their aquariums; they were also well versed
in the arts of acclimatisation. A classic friend, who is well versed
in ancient fish lore, tells me that the great Roman epicures could
run their fish from ice-cold water into boiling cauldrons without
handling them! They spared neither labour nor money in order to gratify
their palates. The Italians sent to the shores of Britain for their
oysters, and then flavoured them in large quantities on artificial
beds. The value of a Roman gentleman’s fish in the palmy days of
Italian banqueting was represented by an enormous sum of money. The
stock kept up by Lucullus was never valued at a less sum than £35,000!
These classic lovers of good things had pet breeds of fish in the same
sense as gentlemen in the present day have pet breeds of sheep or
homed cattle. Lucullus, for instance, to have such a valuable stock,
must have been in possession of unique varieties derived from curious
crosses, etc. Red mullet or fat carp, which sold for large prices,
were not at all unusual. Sixty pounds we can ascertain as being given
for a single mullet, and more than three times that sum for a dish of
that fish; and enormous sums of money were lavished in the buying,
rearing, and taming of the mullet; so much so, that some of those
who devoted their time and money to this purpose were satirised as
mullet-millionaires. One noble Roman went to a fabulous expense in
boring a tunnel through a mountain, in order that he might obtain
a plentiful supply of salt water for his fish-ponds. Sergius Orata
invented artificial oyster-beds. He caused, as will be afterwards
described when I come to speak of oyster-farming, to be constructed at
Baiæ, on the Lucrine Sea, great reservoirs, where he grew the dainty
mollusc in thousands; and in order that he and his friends might have
this renowned shell-fish in its very highest perfection, he built a
palace on the coast, in order to be near his oyster-ponds; and thither
he resorted when he wanted to have a fish-dinner free from the care and
turmoil of business. Many of the more luxurious Italians, imitating
Sergius Orata, expended fabulous sums of money on their fish-ponds, and
were so enabled, by means of their extravagance, to achieve all kinds
of _outré_ results in the fattening and flavouring of their fish. A
curious story, illustrative of these times and of the value set on fish
of a particular flavour, is related, in regard to the bass (_labrax
lupus_) which were caught in the river Tiber. The Roman epicures were
very fond of this fish, especially of those caught in a particular
portion of the river, which they could tell by means of their taste and
fine colour. An exquisite, while dining, was horrified at being served
with bass of the wrong flavour, and loudly complained of the badness of
the fish; the fact being that the real bass (the high-coloured kind)
were flavoured by the disgusting food which they obtained at the mouth
of a common sewer.
The modern phase of pisciculture is entirely a commercial one,
which as yet does not lie in imparting fanciful flavours to the
fish—although, if such were wanted, it might easily enough be
accomplished—but has developed itself both at home and abroad in the
replenishing of exhausted streams with salmon, trout, or other kinds
of fish. The present idea of pisciculture, as a branch of commerce,
is due to the shrewdness of a simple French peasant, who gained his
livelihood as a _pêcheur_ in the tributaries of the Moselle, and the
other streams of his native district, _La Bresse_ in the _Vosges_. He
was a thinking man, although a poor one, and it had long puzzled him
to understand how animals yielding such an abundant supply of eggs
should, by any amount of fishing, ever become scarce. He knew very well
that all female fish were provided with tens of thousands of eggs, and
he could not well see how, in the face of this fact, the rivers of La
Bresse should be so scantily peopled with the finny tribes. Nor was the
scarcity of fish confined to his own district: the rivers of France
generally had become impoverished; and as in all Catholic countries
fish is a prime necessary of life, the want of course was greatly felt.
Joseph Remy was the man who first found out what was wrong with the
French streams, and especially with the fish supplies of his native
rivers—and better than that, he discovered a remedy. He ascertained
that the scarcity of fish was chiefly caused by the immense number of
eggs that never came to life, the enormous quantity of young fish that
were destroyed by enemies of one kind or another, and the fishing-up of
all that was left, in many instances, before they had an opportunity
to reproduce themselves; at any rate, without any care being taken to
leave a sufficient breeding stock in the rivers, so that the result he
discovered had become inevitable.
The guiding fact of pisciculture has been more than once accidentally
re-discovered—that is, allowing that the ancient Romans knew it exactly
as now practised; but nothing came of such discoveries, and till
a discovery be turned to some practical use, it is, in a sense, no
discovery at all. After being lost for many hundred years, the art of
artificially spawning fish was re-discovered in Germany by one Jacobi,
and practised on some trout more than a century ago. This gentleman
not only practised pisciculture himself, but wrote essays on the
subject as well. His elaborate treatise on the art of fish-culture was
written in the German language, but also translated into Latin, and
inserted by Duhamel du Monceau, in his _General Treatise on Fishes_.
Jacobi, who practised the art for thirty years, was not satisfied
with a mere discovery, but at once turned what he had discovered to
practical account, and, in the time of Jacobi, great attention was
devoted to pisciculture by various gentlemen of scientific eminence.
Count Goldstein, a savan of the period, likewise wrote on the subject.
The Journal of Hanover also had papers on this art, and an account of
Jacobi’s proceedings was enrolled in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy
of Berlin. This discovery of Jacobi was the simple result of keen
observation of the natural action of the breeding salmon. Observing
that the process of impregnation was entirely an external act, he saw
at once that this could be easily imitated by careful manipulation; so
that, by conducting artificial hatching on a large scale, a constant
and unfailing supply of fish might readily be obtained. The results
arrived at by Jacobi were of vast importance, and obtained not only
the recognition of his government, but also the more solid reward of a
pension. I need not detail the experiments of Jacobi, as they are very
similar to those of others that I intend to describe at full length in
this portion of my narrative.
Some persons dispute the claims of France to the honour of this
discovery, asserting that the peasant Remy had borrowed his idea from
the experiments of Shaw of Drumlanrig, who had by the artificial
system undertaken to prove that parrs were the young of the salmon.
As I shall again have occasion to allude to Mr. Shaw’s experiments,
I do not require to say more at present on this part of my subject
than that they were brought to a successful conclusion long before
the rediscovery of the art of pisciculture by Remy. In my opinion the
honours may be thus divided, whether Remy knew of Shaw’s experiments
or not: I would give to Scotland the honour of having re-discovered
pisciculture as an adjunct of science, and to France the useful part
of having turned the art to commercial uses. In regard to what has
been already stated here as to the accidental discovery of artificial
fish-breeding, I may mention that James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd,
was one of the discoverers. Hogg had an observant eye for rural scenes
and incidents, and anxiously studied and experimented on fish-life.
He took an active share in the parr controversy. Having seen with his
own eyes the branded parr assuming the scales of the smolt, he never
doubted after that the fact that the parr was the young of the salmon.
In Norway, too, an accidental discovery of this fish-breeding power was
made; and certainly if salmon-fishing in that country goes on at its
present rate cultivation will be largely required. The artificial plan
of breeding oysters has been more than once accidentally discovered.
There is at least one well-authenticated instance of this, which
occurred about a century ago, when a saltmaker of Marennes, who added
to his income by fattening oysters, lost a batch of six thousand in
consequence of an intense frost, the shells not being sufficiently
covered with water; but while engaged in mourning over his loss
and kicking about the dead molluscs, he found them, greatly to his
surprise, covered with young oysters already pretty well developed,
and these, fortunately, although tender, all in good health, so
that ultimately he repeopled his salt-bed without either trouble or
expense—having of course to wait the growth of the natives before he
could recommence his commerce.
To return to Remy, however, his experiments were so instantaneously
crowned with success as even to be a surprise to himself; and in order
to encourage him and Gehin, a coadjutor he had chosen, the Emulation
Society of the Vosges voted them a considerable sum of money and
a handsome bronze medal. It was not, however, till 1849 that the
proceedings of the two attracted that degree of notice which their
importance demanded both in a scientific and economic sense. Dr. Haxo
of Epinal then communicated to the Academy of Sciences at Paris an
elaborate paper on the subject, which at once fixed attention on the
labours of the two fishermen—in fact, it excited a sensation both in
the Academy and among the people. The government of the time at once
gave attention to the matter, and finding, upon inquiry, everything
that was said about the utility of the plan to be true, resolved to
have it extended to all the rivers in France, especially to those
of the poorer districts of the country. The artificial system of
fish-breeding was by this mode of action rapidly extended over the
chief rivers of France, and added much to the comfort of the people,
and in some cases little fortunes were realised by intelligent farmers
who appreciated the system and had a pond or stream on which they could
conduct their experiments in safety.
The piscicultural system has culminated in France, chiefly under the
direction of Professor Coste, in the erection of a great establishment
at Huningue, near Bale, for the collection and distribution of
fish-eggs. In order to see this place with my own eyes, and so be
enabled to describe exactly how the piscicultural business of France
is administered, I paid a visit to the great laboratory along with
some friends in the autumn of 1863, having gone by way of Paris in
order to see that city in its holiday trim during the _fêtes_ of the
Emperor. The weather was so hot, and pleasure-seeking so fatiguing,
that my little party made but a brief stay in the gay capital. It was a
pleasant relief indeed when we had obtained our tickets for Mulhausen,
done the penance of the _salle d’attente_, and then, attaining our
seats, had left the sultry city behind us. The air became at once cool
and moist, and the torturing Paris thirst left us—that fierce thirst
which no quantity of well-mixed _vin ordinaire_ and water, no amount of
brandy and _eau de seltz_, could assuage. After reaching the outskirts
of the city, and passing those manufactories, wood-yards, tile-depôts,
brickfields, and stone-yards, which are common to the environs of all
large towns, we could see well about us, and enjoy the sights and
sounds of French agriculture—all but the perfume of the rotting flax
in process of manipulation in the watery pits; we certainly did not
enjoy that potent compound of all that is awful in the way of smell. It
was pleasant to note the industry of the small farmers, all busy with
their wives and families on their little allotments, or rather estates,
for numbers of them are owners or perpetual holders of the land on
which they work; and it looks curious to eyes accustomed to the large
fields of England to see the little patches which compose the majority
of French farms. We saw no particularly choice landscape scenery on
the line of rail by which we travelled—_via_ Troyes and Chalindrey—but
there was no lack of picturesque villages and immense barns, giving
cheerful token of a rude plenty, and there was no end of tall pollard
trees, and numerous vineyards; besides, here and there, upon a bit of
stubble, we were agreeably surprised by the whitter of an occasional
covey of partridges.
Bent on a piscatorial tour, I noted with care—to the occasional
wonderment of my friends—the spots of water that pretty often fringed
the line of rails, and wondered if they were populated by any of the
finny tribe; if so, by what kind of fish, and whether they had been
replenished by the aid of pisciculture? There was evidently fishing
in the districts we passed through, because at many of the stations
we encountered the vision of an occasional angler, and a frequent
“flop” in many of the pools which we passed convinced me that fair
sport might be had; and the entry of an occasional Waltonian into
some of the stations with twenty pounds weight of trout quite excited
everybody, and made some of us long to whip the waters of the district
of Champagne, through which we were passing. And a close inspection of
the national _etablissement de pisciculture_ at Huningue has convinced
me that if any river in France be still fishless, it is not through the
fault of a paternal government.
Travelling is pleasant in France, for although the trains are slow,
they are safe and punctual. The distance from Paris to Mulhausen is
fifteen hours by the ordinary train, but we did not feel the journey
at all tedious. In my compartment were a priest, who spoke a very
“leetle” English, but who could evidently read a great deal of Latin; a
shrewd Edinburgh news-agent—who, like most Scotchmen, took nothing for
granted, but saw and judged for himself; and his daughter, a young lady
on her way to “do” the Rhine, but who took no interest in pisciculture.
Then there was a lively English gentleman, who seemed to have an
intimate acquaintance with every fish in the Thames; he had netted
whitebait (and eaten them) off Blackwall, he had taken perch out of the
East India Dock, killed a monster pike near Teddington, and had caught
no end of gudgeon at various picturesque spots on the great river.
“Bah,” said my Scotch friend, joining in the conversation, “did you
ever kill a salmon, man? I hate gudgeon and such small fry; give me
the river Isla, about the ‘Brig o’ Riven,’ a good stout rod with no
end of tackle, and an angry seventeen-pound fish sulking behind a big
stone—then you may have sport; or favour me with good trolling-tackle
and a boat on deep Loch Awe, with the castle of Kilchurn glooming its
great shadow over us, and the eternal hills rising tall around, and I
will take out trout that will outweigh a hundred gudgeon; or give me
a trout-rod and a pleasant ramble along the picturesque Shochy, and
I will manage to fill my basket with fish worth taking home; but away
with your Thames gudgeon, they can only satisfy a Cockney linendraper.”
Verily my shrewd Scottish friend, with his reminiscences of monster
fish and his fervid manner, waxed eloquent; he even startled the
priest; and as for the Englishman he looked quite chapfallen. I had to
come to the rescue, and defended as well as I could Thames angling,
and reminded the enthusiastic Caledonian that they once had very fine
salmon in the Thames, and would some day, if all goes well, have them
again; and that gudgeon-fishing in the midst of such fine scenery was
at least a healthy and happy way of having a pleasant day’s “out,” even
if the sport was not quite so fierce as hunting for salmon in the river
Isla at the “Brig o’ Riven.”
The salmon of the Tay, it was also hinted to the news-agent, were not
so famous as those of the Severn. “But we have twenty for your one,”
was the quick reply, “and at the Stormontfield breeding-ponds we are
raising them by the hundred thousand. The rental of the Tay, sir, is
equal to what the whole revenue of the French fisheries was a year or
two ago.” “Very likely, sir,” I replied; “but then the Tay is what you
may call a Highland stream—good for fish, no doubt; and the Thames is
a splendid river in its own way, but no one pretends that it is a fish
river; it is the highway of the greatest commerce in the world, and——”
“Pooh, man,” said the Scotchman, “the Tay is as celebrated for commerce
as for fish. Have you ever been to Dundee?” And then, chuckling to
himself at his rather rich idea of comparing Dundee to London, my
friend sank back in his corner of the carriage and looked as if he
could have slain a thousand London gudgeon-fishers, and the twinkle in
his eye waxed brighter and brighter as he continued his chuckle.
As even the longest journey will come to an end, the train arrived in
due time at Mulhouse, or Mulhausen, as it is called in the German, and
it being late and dark, and our whole party being somewhat fatigued,
we allowed ourselves to be carried to the nearest hotel, a large,
uncomfortable, dirty-looking place, where apparently they seldom see
British gold, and make an immense charge for _bougies_. Had we had the
necessary time to spare, my little party would have been interested in
seeing Mulhouse, which is a manufacturing town of considerable size,
where many of the operatives are the owners of their own houses; but
being within scent of Switzerland, having the feeling that we were in
the shadow of its mountains, and almost within hearing of the noise
made by its many waters, we hurried on by the first train to Bale.
The distance is short, and the conveyance quick. Almost before we had
time to view the passing landscape, which is exceedingly beautiful,
being rich in vineyards and orchards, and rapidly turning Swiss in its
scenery, we were stopped at St. Louis by the custom-house authorities,
who, it is but proper to say, are exceedingly polite to all honest
travellers. I would advise any one in search of the _etablissement
de pisciculture_ at Huningue to leave the train at this station. Not
knowing its proximity at the time of my visit, I went right on to Bale.
Poets might go into raptures about Bale—Bale the beautiful—with the
flowing Rhine cutting it into two halves, its waters green as the
icefields which had given them birth, its houses quaint, its streets
so clean, its fountains so antique; but we had no time to go into
raptures—our business was to get to Huningue, and curiously enough we
had wandered into the fishmarket before we knew where we were. Like
various other fishmarkets which we have visited, it contained no fish
that we could see, but it is so picturesque that I determined to place
a view of it in this work. Hailing a _voiture_, our party had no end
of difficulty to get the coachman to understand where we wanted to
be driven. I said, “To Huningue;” he then suggested that it must be
“Euiniguen,” and my Scotch young lady friend, who was all in a glow
about the “beautiful Rhine,” as, of course, a young lady ought to be,
suggested that the pronunciation might be “Hiningue,” which proved
a shrewd guess, as immediately on hearing it we were addressed in
tolerable but very broken English by a quiet-looking coachman, who
said, “Come with me; I have study the English grammaire; I know where
you want to go, and will take you.” Although I could not help wondering
that a celebrated place, as we all thought Huningue ought to be, was
not better known, I felt pretty sure our coachman knew it; and having
persuaded my Scotch friend and his young lady to take a drive, we at
once started for the _etablissement de pisciculture_, where we were
all of us most hospitably received by the superintendent, who at once
conducted us over the whole place with great civility and attention.
[Illustration: THE FISHMARKET AT BALE.]
[Illustration: GROUND-PLAN OF THE PISCICULTURAL ESTABLISHMENT AT
HUNINGUE.
Showing the disposition of the buildings and the situation of the
experimental watercourses.]
[Illustration: VIEW OF HUNINGUE.]
The series of buildings which have been erected at Huningue are
admirably adapted to the purpose for which they have been designed.
The group forms a square, the entrance portion of which—two lodges—is
devoted to the _corps de garde_, and the centre has been laid out as
a kind of shrubbery, and is relieved with two little ponds containing
fish. The whole establishment, ponds and buildings, occupies a space
of eighty acres. The suite of buildings comprise at the side two great
hatching-galleries, 60 metres in length and 9 metres broad, containing
a plentiful supply of tanks and egg-boxes; and in the back part of the
square are the offices, library, laboratory, and residences of the
officers. Having minutely inspected the whole apparatus, I particularly
admired the aptitude by which the means to a certain end had been
carried out. The egg-boxes are raised in pyramids, the water flowing
from the one on the top into those immediately below. The eggs are
placed in rows on glass frames which fit into the boxes, as will be
seen by examining the drawings. The grand agent in the hatching of
fish-eggs being water, I was naturally enough rather particular in
making inquiry into the water supplies of Huningue, and these I found
were very ample: they are derived from three sources—the springs
on the private grounds of the establishment, the Rhine, and the
Augraben stream. The water of the higher springs is directed towards
the buildings through an underground conduit, whilst those rising
at a lower level are used only in small basins and trenches for the
experiments in rearing fish outside. Being uncovered, however, they
are easily frozen, and are besides frequently muddy and troubled. As
a general rule, fish are not bred at Huningue, the chief business
accomplished there being the collection and distribution of their eggs;
but there is a large supply of tanks or troughs for the purpose of
experimenting with such fish as may be kept in the place. The waters
of the Rhine, being at a higher level than the springs, can be at once
employed in the _appareils_ and basins. The waters of the Augraben
stream, which cross the grounds, are of very little use. Nearly dry
in summer, rapid and muddy after rain, they have only hitherto served
to supply some small exterior basins. Of course, different qualities
of water are quite necessary for the success of the experiments in
acclimatisation carried on so zealously at this establishment. Some
fish delight in a clear running stream, while others prefer to pass
their life in sluggish and fat waters. The engineering of the different
water-supplies, all of them at different levels, has been effectually
accomplished by M. Coumes, the engineer of this department of the
Rhine, who, in conjunction with Professor Coste, planned the buildings
at Huningue; indeed the machinery of all kinds is as nearly as possible
perfect.
[Illustration: HALL OF INCUBATION.]
[Illustration: BASINS FOR THE YOUNG FISH.]
[Illustration: GUTTERS FOR HATCHING PURPOSES.]
The course of business at Huningue is as follows:—The eggs are brought
chiefly from Switzerland and Germany, and embrace those of the various
kinds of trout, the Danube and Rhine salmon, and the tender ombre
chevalier. People are appointed to capture gravid fish of these
various kinds, and having done so to communicate with the authorities
at Huningue, who at once send an expert to deprive the fishes of
their spawn and bring it to the breeding or store boxes, where it is
carefully tended and daily watched till it is ready to be despatched
to some district in want of it. The mode of artificial spawning is
as follows, and I will suppose the subject operated upon to be a
salmon:—Well, first catch your fish; and here I may state that male
salmon are a great deal scarcer than female ones, but fortunately one
of the former will milt two or even three of the latter, so that the
scarcity is not so much felt as it might otherwise be. The fish, then,
having been caught, it should be seen, before operating, that the spawn
is perfectly matured, and that being the case, the salmon should be
held in a large tub, well buried in the water it contains, while the
hand is gently passed along its abdomen, when, if the ova be ripe,
the eggs will flow out like so many peas. The eggs must be carefully
roused or washed, and the water should then be poured off. The male
salmon may be then handled in a similar way, the contact of the milt
immediately changing the eggs into a brilliant pink colour. After being
again washed, the eggs may be ladled out into the breeding-boxes,
and safely left to come to maturity in due season. Very great care
is necessary in handling the ova. The eggs distributed from Huningue
are all carefully examined on their arrival, when the bad ones are
thrown out, and those that are good are counted and entered upon the
records of the establishment, which are carefully kept. The usual way
of ascertaining the quantity is by means of a little stamped measure,
which varies according to the particular fish-eggs to be counted. The
ova are watched with great care so long as they remain in the boxes
at Huningue, and any dust is removed by means of a fine camel-hair
brush, and from day to day all the eggs that become addled are removed.
The applications to the authorities at Huningue for eggs, both from
individuals and associations, are always a great deal more numerous
than can be supplied; and before second applications from the same
people can be entertained, it is necessary for them to give a detailed
account of how their former efforts succeeded. The eggs, when sent
away, are nicely packed in boxes among wet moss, and they suffer very
little injury if there be no delay in the transit.
[Illustration: ARTIFICIAL MODE OF SPAWNING.]
“How about the streams from which the eggs are brought?” I asked. “Does
this robbery of the spawn not injure them?”
“Oh, no; we find that it makes no difference whatever. The fish are
so enormously fecund that the eggs can be got in any quantity, and no
difference be felt in the parent waters;what we obtain here are a mere
percentage of the grand totals deposited by the fish.”
Of course, as the operations are pursued over a large district of two
countries, no immediate difference will be felt; but how if these
Huningue _explorateurs_ go on for years taking away tens of thousands
of eggs? Will that not ultimately prove a case of robbing Peter to pay
Paul? I know full well that all kinds of fish are enormously prolific,
and the reader would see from the figures given in a former section
that it is so; but suppose a river, with the breeding power of the Tay,
was annually robbed of a few million eggs, the result must some day
be a slight difference in the productive power of the water. I would
like to know with exactitude if, while the waters of France are being
replenished, the rivers in Switzerland and Germany are not beginning
to be in their turn impoverished? It surely stands to reason that if
the impoverishment of streams resulting from natural causes be aided
by the carrying away of the eggs by zealous _explorateurs_, they must
become in a short time almost totally barren of fish. The best plan,
in my opinion, is for each river to have its own breeding-ponds on the
plan of those of Stormontfield on the river Tay which I will by and by
describe.[1]
It would scarcely pay to breed the commoner fishes of the lakes and
rivers, as pike, carp, and perch; the commonest fish bred at Huningue
is the _fera_, whilst the most expensive is the beautiful ombre
chevalier, the eggs of which cost about a penny each before they are
in the water as fish. The general calculation, however, appertaining
to the operations carried on at Huningue gives twelve living fish for
a penny. The _fera_ is very prolific, yielding its eggs in thousands;
it is called the herring of the lakes; and the young, when first born,
are so small as scarcely to be perceptible. The superintendent at
Huningue told me that several of them had escaped by means of the canal
into the Rhine, where they had never before been found. I inquired
particularly as to the Danube salmon, but found that it was very
difficult to hatch, especially at first, great numbers of the eggs,
as many sometimes as 60 or 70 per cent, being destroyed; but now the
manipulators are getting better acquainted with the _modus operandi_,
and it is expected that by and by the assistants at Huningue will be
as successful with this fish as they are with all others. Even allowing
for a very considerable loss in the artificially-manipulated ova—and
it is thought that two-thirds at least of the eggs of this fish are in
some way lost—it is certain that the artificial system of protection
is immensely more productive in fish than the natural one, for it has
been said, in reference especially to the salmon of the river Tay, that
hardly one in a thousand of the eggs ever reaches to maturity as a
proper table-fish, such is the enormous destruction of eggs and young
fry; and the percentage of destruction in Catholic countries is greatly
larger, because during the fast-days enjoined by the church fish _must_
be obtained.
Up to the season of 1863-64 the total number of fresh-water fish-eggs
distributed from Huningue was far above 110,000,000, and nearly the
half of these were of the finer kinds of fish, there being no less than
41,000,000 of eggs of salmon and trout.
I have complied a tabular statement, which I insert at this place, of
the number of fish-eggs collected and distributed at Huningue for the
two years previous to my visit:—
1860-61.
┌──────────┬─────────────┬──────────┬───────────┬──────────┬─────────┐
│ │ │ │ │ Quantity │Retained │
│ Species │ Time of │ Ova │ │despatched│ for │
│ │ Operations. │provided. │ Loss. │ from the │ Experi- │
│ │ │ │ │Establish-│ ments at│
│ │ │ │ │ ment. │Huningue.│
├──────────┼─────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ │ 1860-61. │ │ │ │ │
│Common │ │ │ │ │ │
│ trout}│ │ │ │ │ │
│Salmon }│ │ │ │ │ │
│ trout}│ │ │ │ │ │
│Great lake│{Oct. 20 }│ │{1,943,100}│ │ │
│ trout}│{to Mar. 17,}│ 5,729,100│{ 34 per }│ 3,153,500│ 632,500│
│Rhine }│{149 days. }│ │{ cent. }│ │ │
│ salmon}│ │ │ │ │ │
│Ombre }│ │ │ │ │ │
│chevalier}│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │{Nov. 14 }│ │ │ │ │
│Fera │{to Dec. 30,}│ 8,997,000│ 22,000 │ 5,573,000│3,402,000│
│ │{ 46 days. }│ │ │ │ │
├──────────┼─────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ Total │ │14,726,100│ 1,965,100 │8,726,500 │4,034,500│
└──────────┴─────────────┴──────────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────┘
_Destination of the Ova despatched from the Establishment._
278 demands for establishments in 70 departments of France, and 29
demands from establishments in Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, and
Wurtemberg.
1861-62.
┌──────────┬─────────────┬──────────┬───────────┬──────────┬─────────┐
│ │ │ │ │ Quantity │Retained │
│ Species │ Time of │ Ova │ │despatched│ for │
│ │ Operations. │provided. │ Loss. │ from the │ Experi- │
│ │ │ │ │Establish-│ ments at│
│ │ │ │ │ ment. │Huningue.│
├──────────┼─────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ │ 1861-62. │ │ │ │ │
│Common │ │ │ │ │ │
│ trout}│ │ │ │ │ │
│Salmon }│ │ │ │ │ │
│ trout}│ │ │ │ │ │
│Great lake│ { Oct. 24 }│ │ │ │ │
│ trout}│ {to Mar. 7,}│ 6,382,900│ 2,602,400│ 3,360,000│ 420,500│
│Rhine }│ {135 days. }│ │ │ │ │
│ salmon}│ │ │ │ │ │
│Ombre }│ │ │ │ │ │
│chevalier}│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │{ Nov. 16 }│ │ │ │ │
│Fera │{to Dec. 25,}│11,995,000│ 12,000 │ 9,519,000│2,464,000│
│ │{ 39 days. }│ │ │ │ │
├──────────┼─────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ Total │ │18,377,900│ 2,614,400 │12,879,000│2,884,500│
└──────────┴─────────────┴──────────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────┘
296 demands for establishments in 76 departments of France, and 39
demands from other parts of Europe.
So far as I could ascertain, the right of fishing in France is claimed
by the Government in all navigable rivers and canals, but private
persons can purchase the power to fish; and the rent payable by those
using nets varies from £1 to £4 per annum. In common streams that are
not navigable, and in lakes, the fishery belongs to the proprietors
of the surrounding land, and no person can fish in these without
permission. As to the larger river fisheries, they are so mapped out
as to prevent all possibility of dispute, no fisherman being permitted
to work his nets on a portion of water which does not belong to him.
Fishing of some kind goes on all the year round.
The following figures will indicate the money rental and the value of
the produce of the whole of the French fisheries:—
4719 miles navigable rivers £23,025
3105 miles of canals 5,845
310 miles of estuaries of rivers 46,140
930 miles of rivers and canals belonging to individual
proprietors 2,700
114,889 miles of rivers and streams not navigable.
493,750 acres of lakes and ponds.
The money value of the fish caught in these waters may be stated as
follows:—
From State Returns for rivers and canals £28,880
The estuaries yield £46,140, of which the fresh
waters supply one-half, giving 23,080
Rivers and canals belonging to private individuals 2,680
114,889 miles of watercourses 148,000
493,750 acres of lakes and ponds 400,000
————————
Total £602,640
If the profits of the cultivators and expenses of the fishery be added
to the produce, we have—
Canals and watercourses £400,000
Lakes and ponds 400,000
————————
Total production of profits and produce £800,000
[Illustration: PISCICULTURAL ESTABLISHMENT AT BUISSE.]
The piscicultural establishment of M. de Galbert, one of the most
important of the kind which exists in France, is worthy of notice. It
is situated at Buisse in the canton of Voiron in Isere, a department on
the south-east frontier of France. The works, of which the accompanying
engraving is a plan, comprise four ponds for the reception of the fish
in various stages of growth. The first (1 in the plan) is about 100
metres long by 3 m. 50 in breadth, with a mean depth of 1 metre. It
is almost divided into two parts, a sheet of water and a stream, by a
peninsula, and the division is completed by a grating which prevents
the mixing of the fish contained in each part, and also arrests the
ascent or descent of the fry. The sheet of water is supplied from
sources of an elevated temperature which diverge into the stream, and
thence into pond No. 2 at N. This basin (2) is 150 metres long, with
a mean breadth of 8 metres, and a depth varying from 1 to 2 metres.
Besides the waters from the first pond, this basin is supplied from
the springs, and from the mill-stream which rises from a rock situated
at a distance of 200 metres. This pond contains fish of the second
year. A sluice or water-gate (J), placed in the deepest part of the
pond, affords the means of turning the water and the fish contained
therein into the pond No. 3. Courses of rough stones and weeds line the
banks of the pond, and form places of shelter for the fish, besides
encouraging the growth of such shell-fish as shrimps, lobsters, etc.
The third pond (3) has a surface of about 5000 yards, with a depth
equal to that of the second pond. An underground canal (G) runs along
the eastern side, and at distances of 2 metres trenches lined with
stones loosely thrown together join the canal to the basin, and allow
the fish to circulate through these subterranean passages, where every
stone becomes a means of shelter and concealment. The adult trout can
conceal themselves in the submerged holes and crevices of the islands
(F) of which there are three in the pond. The narrowest part of the
basin is crossed by a viaduct of 8 metres (N), to the arch of which
is fitted an iron grating with rods in grooves to receive either a
sluice or a snare. The sluice, formed of fine wire, keeps out the
fish that would destroy the spawn at the time of fecundation. The
spawn is covered with a layer of fine round gravel, to the thickness
of 0 m. 30, which the trout can easily raise as fast as it bursts the
egg. The snare or netting encloses the fish destined for artificial
breeding without hurting them, and also secures the fish that are to
be consumed, and those which it is necessary to destroy because of
their voracity, as the pike. A floodgate placed at the lower end of
the pond permits the pond to be emptied when necessary, and an iron
grating prevents the escape of the fish. All the ponds are protected by
a double line of galvanised iron wire placed on posts armed with hooks,
and yet low enough to allow a boat to pass. The water of the ponds
finally passes into the Isere, where a permanent snare allows strange
fish to penetrate into the ponds. At spawning time a great many trout
deposit their spawn there. The small pond (4) fed by the mill-stream
is a sort of reservoir for large fish destined for sale or domestic
use. Throughout the year the fish caught in the nets of the third
pond are placed in this basin, so when the spawning season arrives it
is a vast nursery for the purpose of reproduction. In the house (O)
built near the bridge (N) of the third pond lodge the guard and the
hatching-apparatus. The _appareils_ are similar to those employed at
the Collége de France and are supplied from a spring. One particular
appareil, placed in a source of which the temperature never varies,
is slightly different from the other models: it is simply zinc boxes
pierced with very fine holes. This apparatus, which has been in use for
three years, has given great satisfaction. It may be added that the
establishment at Buisse can supply 40,000 or 50,000 young trout in the
year at five centimes each, a result which is mainly due to the care
and solicitude with which M. de Galbert has conducted his operations.
What strikes us most in connection with the history of French
fish-culture is the essentially practical nature of all the experiments
which have been entered upon. There has been no toying in France with
this revived art of fish-breeding. The moment it was ascertained that
Remy’s discoveries in artificial spawning were capable of being carried
out on the largest possible scale, that scale was at once resolved
upon, and the government of the country became responsible for its
success, which was immediate and substantial. The discoverer of the art
was handsomely rewarded; and the great building at Huningue, used as
a place for the reception and distribution of fish-eggs, testifies to
the anxiety of France to make pisciculture one of the most practical
industries of the present day. Unceasing efforts are still being made
by the government to extend the art, so that every acre of water in
that country may be as industriously turned to profit as the acres of
land are. Why should not an acre of water become as productive as an
acre of land? We have an immensity of water space that is comparatively
useless. The area occupied by the water of our lakes and rivers may
be estimated from the Thames, which occupies a space of five thousand
square miles. The French people are now beginning thoroughly to
appreciate the value of their lakes and rivers. Think of the fish-ponds
of Doombes being of the extent of thirty thousand acres! No wonder that
in France pisciculture has become a government question, and been taken
under the protecting wing of the state.
The different kinds of water in France are carefully considered, and
only fish suitable for them placed therein. In marshy places eels
alone are deposited, whilst in bright and rapid waters trout and
other suitable fish are now to be found in great plenty. Attention is
at present being turned to sea-fish, and the latest “idea” that has
been promulgated in connection with the cultivation of sea-animals
is turtle-culture. The artificial multiplication of turtle, on the
plan of securing the eggs and protecting the young till they are able
to be left to their own guidance, is advocated by M. Salles, who is
connected with the French navy, and who seems to have a considerable
knowledge of the nature and habits of the turtle. To some extent
turtle-culture is already carried on in the island of Ascension—so
far at least as the protection of the eggs and watching over the
young is concerned. M. Salles proposes, however, to do more than is
yet done at Ascension; he thinks that, to arrive quickly at a useful
result, it would be best to obtain a certain number of these animals
from places where they are still abundant, and transport them to such
parks or receptacles as might be established on the coasts of France
and Corsica, where, at one time, turtles were plentiful. Animals about
to lay would be the best to secure for the proposed experiments; and
these might be captured when seeking the sandy shores for the purpose
of depositing their eggs. Male turtles might at the same time be taken
about the islets which they frequent. A vessel of sufficient dimensions
should be in readiness to bring away the precious freight; and the
captured animals, on arriving at their destination, should be deposited
in a park chosen under the following considerations:—The formation
of the sides to be an inclosure by means of an artificial barrier of
moderate height, formed of stones, and perpendicular within, so as
to prevent the escape of the animals, but so constructed as to admit
the sea, and, at the same time, allow of a large sandy background for
the deposition of the eggs, which are about the size of those laid by
geese. As the turtles are herbivorous, the bottom of the park should be
covered with sea-weeds and marine plants of all kinds, similar to those
the animal is accustomed to at home. A fine southern exposure ought to
be chosen for the site of the park, in order to obtain as much of the
sunshine as possible, heat being the one grand element in the hatching
of the eggs. Turtles are very fond of sunshine, and float lazily about
in the tropical water, seldom coming to the shore except to lay. This
they do in the night-time: crawling cautiously ashore, and scraping a
large hole in a part of the sand which is never reached by the tide,
they deposit their eggs, and carefully cover them with the sand,
leaving the sun to effect the work of quickening them into life.
It may be as well to state here that the French people eat all kinds of
fish, whether they be from the sea, the river, the lake, or the canal.
In Scotland and Ireland the salmon only is bred artificially as yet,
and chiefly because it is a valuable and money-yielding animal, and no
other fresh-water fish is regarded there as being of value except for
sport. In France large quantities of eels are bred and eaten; but in
Scotland, and in some parts of England, the people have such a horror
of that fish that they will not touch it. This of course is due to
prejudice, as the eel is good for food in a very high degree. In all
Roman Catholic countries there are so many fast-days that fish-food
becomes to the people an essential article of diet; in France this
is so, and the consequence is that a good many private amateurs in
pisciculture are to be found throughout the empire; but the mission of
the French Government in connection with fish-culture is apparently to
meddle only with the rearing and acclimatising of the more valuable
fishes. It would be a waste of energy for the authorities at Huningue
to commence the culture of the carp or perch. In our Protestant country
there is no demand for the commoner river or lake fishes except for
the purposes of sport; and with one or two exceptions, such as the
Lochleven trout, the charr, etc., there is no commerce carried on in
these fishes. One has but to visit the fishmarket at Paris to observe
that all kinds of fresh-water fish and river crustacea are there ranked
as saleable, and largely purchased. The mode of keeping these animals
fresh is worthy of being followed here. They are kept alive till wanted
in large basins and troughs, where they may at all times be seen
swimming about in a very lively state.
As soon as the piscicultural system became known, it was rapidly
extended over the whole continent of Europe, and the rivers of Germany
were among the first to participate in the advantages of the artificial
system. In particular may be noticed the efforts made to increase the
supplies of the Danube salmon, a beautiful and excellent food-fish,
with a body similar to the trout, but still more shapely and graceful,
and which, if allowed time, is said to grow to an enormous size. The
young salmon of the Danube are always of a darker colour than those a
little older, but they become lighter in colour as they progress in
years. The mouth of this fish is furnished with very strong teeth; its
back is of a reddish grey, its sides and belly perfectly white; the
fins are bluish white; the back and the upper part of both sides are
slightly and irregularly speckled with black and roundish red spots.
This fish is also very prolific. Professor Wimmer of Landshut, the
authorities at Huningue mentioned, had frequently obtained as many as
40,000 eggs from a female specimen which weighed only eighteen pounds.
Our own _Salmo salar_ is not so fecund, it being well understood that a
thousand eggs per pound weight is about the average spawning power of
the British salmon. The ova of the Danube salmon are hatched in half
the time that our salmon eggs require for incubation—viz. in fifty-six
days—while the young fry attain the weight of one pound in the first
year; and by the third year, if well supplied with the requisite
quantity of food, they will have attained a weight of four pounds.
The divisions of growth, as compared with _Salmo salar_, are pretty
nearly as follows:—That fish, curiously enough, may at the end of two
years be eight pounds in weight, or it may not be half that number of
ounces. One batch of a salmon hatching go to the sea at the end of the
first year, and rapidly return as grilse, handsome four-pound fish,
whilst the other moiety remain in the fresh water till the expiry of
the second year from the time of birth, so that _they_ require about
thirty months to become four-pound fish, by which time the first moiety
are salmon of eight or ten pounds! These are ascertained facts. This
is rapid work as compared with the Danube fish, which, after the first
year, grows only at about the rate of eighteen ounces per annum. But
even at that rate, fish-cultivation must pay well. Suppose that by the
protected or piscicultural system a full third (_i.e._ 13,500) of the
40,000 eggs arrive in twelve months at the stage of pound fish, and
are sold at the rate of threepence per pound weight, a revenue of £162
would thus result in one year’s time from a single pair of breeding
salmon! Two pairs would, of course, double the amount, and so on.
A series of well-conducted operations in fish-culture has been carried
on for about twelve years on the river Tay about five miles from Perth;
and as these have attracted a great amount of attention, they merit a
somewhat lengthened description. The breeding-ponds at Stormontfield
are beautifully situated on a sloping haugh on the banks of the Tay,
and are sheltered at the back by a plantation of trees. The ground
has been laid out to the best advantage, and the whole of the ponds,
water-runs, etc., have been planned and constructed by Mr. Peter Burn,
C.E., and they have answered the purpose for which they were designed
admirably. The supply of water is obtained from a rapid mill-stream,
which runs in a line with the river Tay, as is shown by a small plan
on the next page. The necessary quantity of water is first run from
this stream into a reservoir, from which it is filtered through pipes
into a little watercourse at the head of the range of boxes from whence
it is laid on. These boxes are fixed on a gentle declivity, half-way
between the mill-race and the Tay, and by means of the slope the water
falls beautifully from one to another of the three hundred “procreant
cradles” in a gradual but constant stream, and collects at the bottom
of the range of boxes in a kind of dam, and thence runs into a small
lake or depôt where the young fish are kept. Until lately only one
such pond was to be found at Stormontfield, but another pond for the
smolts has now been added in order to complete the suite. A sluice
made of fine wire-grating admits of the superfluous water being run
off into the Tay, so that an equable supply is invariably kept up. It
also serves for an outlet to the fish when it is deemed expedient to
send them out to try their fortune in the greater deep near at hand,
and for which their pond experience has been a mode of preparation.
The planning of the boxes, ponds, sluices, etc., has been accomplished
with great ingenuity; and one can only regret that the whole apparatus
is not three times the size, so that the Tay proprietors might
breed annually a million of salmon, which would add largely to the
productiveness of that river, and of course aid in increasing the
rental.
[Illustration: ORIGINAL BREEDING-POND AT STORMONTFIELD.
A. Mill-race.
B. Filtering-pond.
C. Hatching-boxes.
D. Rearing-pond.
E. Upper canal.
F. Lower canal.
G. Connecting stream of C and D.
H. By-run to river.
K. Pipe from mill-race to pond.
L. Pipe to empty pond.
M. Pipe from mill-race to filtering-pond.
_n n_. Discharge-pipes from do.
O. Do. do. to lower canal.
P. Sluices from pond.
R. Marking-box.
S. Keeper’s house.
T V. Sluices from lower canal.
]
For the purpose of showing the level of the pond at Stormontfield I beg
to introduce what the French people call “a profile.”
[Illustration: PROFILE OF STORMONTFIELD SALMON-BREEDING PONDS.
A. Source of water-supply.
B. Pond from which to filter water on boxes.
C. Egg-boxes.
D. Pond for young fish.
E. River Tay.
]
The salmon-breeding operations at Stormontfield originated at a
meeting of the proprietors of the river Tay held in July 1852,
when a communication by Dr. Eisdale was read on the subject of
artificial propagation; and Mr. Thomas Ashworth of Poynton detailed
the experiments which had been conducted at his Irish fisheries.
This gentleman, who takes a great and practical interest in all
matters relating to fisheries and the breeding of fish—and to whom I
am greatly indebted for practical information—said that he had long
entertained the opinion that it would be quite as easy to propagate
salmon artificially in our rivers as it is to raise silkworms on
mulberry leaves, though the former were under water and the latter in
the open air; “indeed it has become an established fact,” said Mr.
Ashworth, “that salmon and other fish may be propagated artificially
in ponds in numbers amounting to millions, at a small cost, and thus
be protected from their natural enemies for the first year or two of
their existence, after which they will be much more able, comparatively
speaking, to take care of themselves, than can be the case in the
earlier stages of their existence.” Mr. Ashworth estimates the expense
of artificial propagation as about one pound for each thousand fish, or
one farthing per salmon. On the suggestion of Mr. Ashworth, a practical
pisciculturist was engaged to inaugurate the breeding operations at
Stormontfield, and to teach a local fisherman the art of artificial
spawning. The operation of preparing the spawn for the boxes was
commenced on the 23d of November 1853, and in the course of a month
300,000 ova were deposited in the 300 boxes, which had been carefully
filled with prepared gravel, and made all ready for their reception.
Mr. Ramsbottom, who conducted the manipulation, says the river Tay is
one of the finest breeding streams in the world, and thinks that it
would be presumptuous to limit the numbers of salmon that might be bred
in it were the river cultivated to the full extent of its capabilities.
The date when the first of the eggs deposited was observed to be
hatched was on the 31st of March, a period of more than four months
after the stocking of the boxes; and during April and May most of
the eggs had started into life, and the fry were observed waddling
about the breeding-boxes, and were in June promoted to a place in the
reception-pond, being then tiny fish a little more than an inch long.
Sir William Jardine, who has taken a warm interest in the Stormontfield
operations, thought that the first year’s experiments were remarkably
successful in showing the practicability of hatching, rearing,
and maintaining in health, a very large number of young fish, at a
comparatively trifling cost. The artificial breeding of salmon is still
carried on at these ponds, and with very great success, when their
limited extent is taken into account. They have sensibly increased the
stock of fish in the Tay, and also, as I will by and by relate, under
the separate head of “The Salmon,” contributed greatly to the solution
of the various mysteries connected with the growth of that fish. The
fish, it is remarkable, suffer no deterioration of any kind by being
bred in the ponds, and can compare in every respect with those bred in
the river.
[Illustration: DESIGN FOR A SERIES OF SALMON-BREEDING PONDS.
Source of supply at top.
Breeding-boxes next.
Parr-pond after.
Smolt-pond to the right.
Adult salmon pond to the left.
River at foot of plan.
Ornamental walks.
Clumps of trees, etc., according to taste.
]
The plan of the ponds at Stormontfield, as originally constructed,
will be a better guide to persons desiring information than any written
description. The engraving, with the double pond, shows a design of my
own, founded on the Stormontfield suite it contains a separate pond
for the detention, for a time, of such large fish as may be taken with
their spawn not fully matured. Cottages for the superintendent of the
ponds and his assistants are also shown in the plan.
The ponds at Stormontfield were originally designed with a view to
breed 300,000 fish per annum, but after a trial of two years it was
found, from a speciality in the natural history of the salmon elsewhere
alluded to, that only half that number of fish could be bred in each
year. Hence the necessity for the recently-constructed smolt-pond,
which will now admit of a hatching at Stormontfield of at least 350,000
eggs every year. An additional reason for the construction of the new
pond was the fact of the old one being too small in proportion to the
breeding-boxes. Its dimensions were 223 feet by 112 feet at its longest
and broadest parts. The new pond is nearly an acre in extent, and is
well adapted for the reception of the young fish.
The egg-boxes at Stormontfield, unlike those at Huningue, are in the
open air, and in consequence the eggs are exposed to the natural
temperature, and take, on an average of the seasons, about 120 days
to ripen into fish. For instance, the eggs laid down in November 1863
had not come to life at the time of my visit to the ponds in the
second week of March 1864. The young fish, as soon as they are able to
eat—which is not for a good few days, as the umbilical bag supplies all
the food that is required for a time by the newly-hatched animal—are
fed with particles of boiled liver. On the occasion of my last visit
(December 22, 1864), Mr. Marshall threw a few crumbs into the pond,
which caused an immediate rising of the fry at that spot in great
numbers. It would, of course, have been a simple plan to turn each
year’s fish out of the ponds into the river as they were hatched, but
it was thought advisable rather to detain them till they were seized
with the migratory instinct and assumed the scales of smolthood, which
occurs, as already stated in other parts of this work, at the age of
one and two years respectively. Indeed, the experiments conducted at
the Stormontfield ponds have conclusively settled the long-fought
battle of the parr, and proved indisputably that the parr is the young
of the salmon, that it becomes transformed to a smolt, grows into a
grilse, and ultimately attains the honour of full-grown salmonhood.
The anomaly in the growth of the parr was also attempted to be solved
at Stormontfield, but without success. In November and December
1857 provision was made for hatching in separate compartments the
artificially-impregnated ova of—1, parr and salmon; 2, grilse and
salmon; 3, grilse pure; 4, salmon pure. It was found, when the young of
these different matches came to be examined early in April 1859, that
the sizes of each kind varied a little, Mr. Buist, the superintendent
of fisheries, informing us that—“1st, the produce of the salmon with
salmon are 4 in. in length; 2d, grilse with salmon, 3½ in.; 3d,
grilse with grilse, 3½ in.; 4th, parr with grilse, 3 in.; 5th, smolt
from large pond, 5 in.” These results of a varied manipulation never
got a fair chance of being of use as a proof in the disputation; for,
owing to the limited extent of the ponds at the time, the experiments
had to be matured in such small boxes or ponds as evidently tended to
stunt the growth of the fish. Up to the present time the riddle which
has so long puzzled our naturalists in connection with the growth of
the salmon has not been solved. A visitor whom I met at the ponds was
of opinion that a sufficient quantity of milt was not used in the
fructification of the eggs, as the male fish were scarcer than the
female ones, and that those eggs which first came into contact with the
milt produced the stronger fish.
“Peter of the Pools” (Mr. Buist) says that what strikes a stranger who
visits the ponds most is the great disparity in the size of fish of the
same age, the difference of which can only be that of a few weeks, as
all were hatched by the month of May. That there are strong and weak
fry from the moment that they burst the covering admits not of a doubt,
and that the early fish may very speedily be singled out from among
the late ones is also quite certain. In the course of a few weeks the
smolts that are to leave at the end of the first year can be noted. The
keeper’s opinion is that at feeding-time the weak are kept back by the
strong, and therefore are not likely to thrive so fast as those that
get a larger portion of the food; he lays great stress on feeding, and
his opinion on that subject is entitled to consideration.
At the time of the visit alluded to one of the ponds (the original one)
was swarming with young salmon hatched out in March and April 1864, the
eggs having been placed in the boxes in November and December 1863.
Half of these would depart from the ponds as smolts during May 1865;
the other half, I suppose, would be transferred to the new pond, as
there is direct communication with both of the ponds from the canal at
the foot of the suite of breeding-boxes, which have been lately renewed
and improved. The requirements of spawning only once in two seasons
have not been strictly observed of late years, so that eggs were laid
down in both the years 1862 and 1863. In the former of those years the
ova laid down were 250,000, and in 1863 about 80,000; indeed, no more
could be obtained, in consequence of the river being in an unfavourable
state for capturing the gravid fish.
The guiding of the smolts from the ponds to the river is easily managed
through the provision made at Stormontfield for that purpose, and
which consists of a runlet lined with wood, protected at the pond by
a perforated zinc sluice, and terminating near the river in a kind of
reception-chamber, about four feet square, which, is likewise provided
with a zinc sluice (also perforated), to keep the fish from getting
away till the arranged time, thus affording proper facilities for the
marking and examination of departing broods. [See plan.] The sluice
being lifted, the current of water is sufficiently strong to carry
the fish down a gentle slope to the Tay, into which they proceed in
considerable quantities, day by day, till all have departed; the parrs,
strange to say, evincing no desire to remove, although, of course,
being in the same breeding-ponds, they have a good opportunity of
reaching the river.
It was a great drawback in former years at Stormontfield, during the
hatching seasons, that many fish were caught with their eggs not
sufficiently matured, and which could not be used in consequence. To
remedy this, a plan has been adopted of keeping all the salmon that
are caught, if they be so nearly ripe for spawning as to warrant
their detention. These are confined in the mill-race till they become
thoroughly ready for the manipulator, and are kept within bounds by
strong iron gratings, placed about 100 yards from each other. These
gravid fish are taken out as they are required, or rather as they
ripen, by means of a small sweep-net, and it is noteworthy that the
animals, after being once or twice fished for, become very cunning, and
hide themselves in such bottom holes as they can discover, in order
that the net may pass over them. I have no doubt that the Stormontfield
mill-race forms an excellent temporary feeding-place for these fish, as
its banks are well overhung with vegetation, and its waters are clear
as crystal, and of good flavour. It is a decided convenience to be able
thus to store the egg-and-milt-producing fish till they are wanted,
and will render the annual filling of the breeding-boxes a certainty,
which, even under the old two-year system, was not so, in consequence
of floods on the river Tay, and from many other causes besides.
The latest has been the best spawning season experienced since the
commencement of the Stormontfield artificial spawning operations. On
the 22d of December (1865) I found that Peter Marshall, the resident
pisciculturist, had up to that date deposited in the breeding-boxes
more than 300,000 salmon eggs, and that he still had three adult fish
to spawn, from which he calculated upon obtaining something like 50,000
additional eggs, and he told me that that number would complete the
total quantity required that season—viz. 350,000; indeed, the boxes
cannot conveniently hold many more, although another row has been
constructed.
Upwards of a million of pond-bred fish have now been thrown into
the river Tay, and the result has been a satisfactory rise in the
salmon-rental of that magnificent stream.
I have compiled the following summary of what has been achieved in
salmon-breeding at the Stormontfield ponds:—
On the 23d November 1853 the stocking of the boxes commenced, and
before a month had expired 300,000 ova were deposited, being at the
rate of 1000 to each box, of which at that time there were 300. These
ova were hatched in April 1854, and the fry were kept in the ponds
till May 1855, when the sluice was opened, and one moiety of the fish
departed for the river and the sea. About 1300 of these were marked by
cutting off the dead or second dorsal fin. The smolts marked were about
one in every hundred, so that about 130,000 must have departed, leaving
more than that number in the pond. The second spawning, in 1854, was
a failure, only a few thousand fish being produced. This result arose
from the imperfect manipulation of the fish by those intrusted with the
spawning. The third spawning took place between the 22d November and
the 16th December 1855, and during that time 183,000 ova were deposited
in the boxes. These ova came to life in April 1856. The second
migration of the fry spawned in 1853 took place between the 20th April
and 24th May 1856. Of the smolts that then left the ponds, 300 were
marked with rings, and 800 with cuts in the tail. Many grilses having
the mark on the tail were re-taken, but none of those marked with the
ring. The smolts from the hatching of 1856 left the pond in April
1857. About 270 were marked with silver rings inserted into the fleshy
part of the tail; about 1700 with a small hole in the gill-cover; and
about 600 with the dead fin cut off in addition to the mark in the
gill-cover. Several grilses with the mark on the gill and tail were
caught and reported, but no fish marked with the ring. The fourth
spawning took place between the 12th November and the 2d December 1857,
when 150,000 ova were deposited in the boxes. These came to life in
March 1858. Of the smolts produced from the previous hatching, which
left the pond in 1858, 25 were marked with a silver ring behind the
dead fin, and 50 with gilt copper wire. Very few of this exodus were
reported as being caught. The smolts produced from the hatching of 1858
left the pond in April 1859, and 506 of them were marked. The fifth
spawning, from 15th November to 13th December 1859, produced 250,000
ova, which were hatched in April 1860. Of the smolts that left in 1860,
670 were marked, and a good many of them were reported as having been
caught on their return from the sea. The smolts of the hatching of 1860
left the pond in May 1861, but none of them were marked.[2] The number
of eggs deposited in the breeding-boxes in the spawning season of 1862
(November and December) was about 250,000; and in 1863 not more than
80,000 ova could be obtained, in consequence of the unfavourable state
of the river for capturing gravid salmon. Peter Marshall has proved a
most able pisciculturist. The loss of eggs under his management forms
an almost infinitesimal proportion of the total quantities hatched at
Stormontfield.
Mr. Buist has favoured me with the following notes, which were compiled
from his day-books at an early stage of the Stormontfield experiments:—
“1. Of the marked fish which were liberated from the pond at
Stormontfield, four out of every hundred were recaptured, either as
grilse or salmon.
“2. We find that more than 300,000 fish were reared in the pond, and
allowed to go into the Tay. Thus forty fish out of every thousand were
recaptured; and as 300,000 were in all liberated, it follows that
12,000 of the salmon taken in the Tay were pond-bred fish. But as the
fish did not all go away in one year, this 12,000 must be distributed
over two years.
“3. We find the average number of salmon and grilse taken in each year
is 70,000. It follows, then, if there be any truth in figures, that
nearly one-tenth of the fish taken in the Tay for the last two years
were artificially bred. This is equivalent to a rise of 10 per cent in
the rental of the fishings; and such we find is the result.
“It may be urged that if the salmon from which the ova were taken had
been left at liberty, the result would have been the same; but this
we know could not have been the case, for, according to a careful
calculation made by Mr. Thomas Tod Stoddart and others, each pair of
salmon, although they produce upon an average 30,000 eggs, do not rear
above five fish. Three female fish, if every egg they deposit was to
produce a salmon, would produce all the fish in the Tay. When left in
their natural state, 30,000 ova produce four or five fish fit for the
table; whereas the same number of ova, when carefully protected in the
breeding-ponds, produce about 800. This is supposing that one-third of
the ova deposited in the boxes perishes—does not hatch, and comes to
nothing. Therefore the increase in the number of salmon taken within
the last year is accounted for. Had there been any increase in the
number of fish in the other rivers of Scotland, doubts might arise; but
there has been no such increase, last year being a bad one for every
river in Scotland with the exception of the Tay.”
In addition to the group of salmon-breeding ponds at Stormontfield,
a very successful suite of breeding-boxes has been laid down on the
river Dee, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, by Messrs. Martin and
Gillone, the lessees of the river Dee salmon-fisheries. Mr. Gillone,
who is an adept in the art of fish-culture, was one of the earliest
to experiment on the salmon, and so long ago as 1830 had arrived at
the conclusion that parr were young salmon, and that that tiny animal
changed at a given period into a smolt, and in time became a valuable
table-fish. These early experiments of Mr. Gillone’s were not in any
sense commercial; they were conducted solely with a view to solve what
was then a curious problem in salmon-growth. In later years Mr. Gillone
and his partner have entered upon salmon-breeding as an adjunct of
their fisheries on the river Dee, for which, as tacksmen, they pay a
rental of upwards of £1200 per annum. The breeding-boxes of Messrs.
Martin and Gillone have been fitted up on a very picturesque part
of the river at Tongueland, and the number of eggs last brought to
maturity is considerably over 100,000. The present series of hatchings
for commercial purposes was begun in 1862-63 with 25,000 eggs, followed
in the succeeding year by a laying down of nearly double that number.
The hatchings of these seasons were very unsuccessful, the loss from
many causes being very great, for the manipulation of fish eggs during
the time of their artificial extraction and impregnation requires
great care—a little maladroitness being sufficient to spoil thousands.
The last hatching (spring 1865) has been most successfully dealt with.
Messrs. Martin and Gillone’s breeding-boxes are all under cover, being
placed in a large lumber-store connected with a biscuit manufactory.
This chamber is seventy feet long, and there is a double row of boxes
extending the whole length of the place. These receptacles for the
eggs are made of wood; they are three feet long, one foot wide, and
four inches deep, and into the whole series a range of frames has
been fitted containing glass troughs on which to lay the eggs. The
edges of the glass are ground off, and they are fitted angularly
_across the current_ in the shape of a V. The eggs are laid down on,
or rather sown into, these troughs, from a store bottle, on to which
is fitted a tapering funnel. The flow of water, which is derived from
the river, and is filtered to prevent the admission of any impurity,
is very gentle, being at the rate of about fifteen feet per minute,
and is kept perfectly regular. The boxes are all fitted with lids,
in order to prevent the eggs from being devoured, as is often done,
by rats and other vermin, and also to assimilate the conditions of
artificial hatching as much as possible to those of the natural
breeding-beds—where, of course, the eggs are covered up with gravel and
are hatched in comparative darkness.
It may be of some use, particularly to those who are interested in
pisciculture, to note a few details connected with the capturing of the
gravid fish and the plan of exuding the ova practised at Tongueland.
The river Dee is tolerably well stocked with fish, as may be surmised
from the rent I have named as being paid for the right of fishing. Mr.
Gillone adopts the plan, now also in use at Stormontfield, of capturing
his fish in good time—in fact, as a general rule, before the eggs are
ripe—and of confining them in his mill-race till they are thoroughly
ready for manipulation. Last season—_i.e._ in November and December
1864, and January 1865—as many as thirty-six female fish were taken for
their roe, the number of milters being twenty-five, the total weight of
the lot being 454 lbs., or, on the average, six and a half pounds each
fish. According to rule, the weight of the female fish taken having
been 283 lbs., these ought to have yielded 283,000 eggs, but as several
of the fish were about ripe at the time they were caught, they spawned
naturally in the mill-race, where the eggs in due time came to life.
The plan of spawning pursued at Tongueland is as follows:—Whenever the
fish are supposed to be ripe for that process, the water is shut out
of the dam, and the animal is first placed in a box filled with water
in order to its examination; if ready to be operated upon, it is then
transferred to a trough filled with water about three feet and a half
long, seven inches in breadth, and of corresponding depth, and the
roe or milt is pressed out of the fish just in the position in which
it swims. As soon as the eggs are secured, a portion of the water is
poured out of the wooden vessel, and the male fish is then similarly
treated. The milt and roe are mixed by hand stirring, and the eggs then
being washed are distributed into the boxes.
Mr. Gillone carries on all his operations with the greatest possible
precision. He has a large clear glass bottle marked off in divisions,
each of which contains 800 eggs, and he numbers the divisions allotted
to each particular fish, which are sown into a similarly numbered
division in his box, so that by referring to his index-book he can
trace out any peculiarity in the eggs, etc.
Although pisciculture has been shown by means of what has been achieved
on the Continent and at Stormontfield to be eminently practical, yet
nothing beyond a few toy experiments, so to speak, have been made in
England; indeed, we have had a great deal of “toying” with the subject;
but all honour to Messrs. Buckland and Francis—they are evidently
doing their best to create public opinion on the subject. Lectures
have been delivered on fish-culture, and letters have been thickly sent
to the daily papers, advocating the extension of the art; but no great
movement has been made beyond stocking the upper waters of the Thames
with a few thousand trout and some fancy fish. Salmon also have been
hatched; but can they reach the sea in the present state of the river?
[Illustration: PISCICULTURAL APPARATUS.]
In order that gentlemen who have a bit of running water on their
property may try the experiment of artificial hatching, I give a
drawing of an apparatus invented by M. Coste suitable for hatching out
a few thousand eggs—it could be set up in a garden or be placed in any
convenient outhouse. I may state that I am able to hatch salmon eggs
in the saucer of a flower-pot; it is placed on a shelf over a fixed
wash-hand basin, and a small flow of water regulated by a stopcock
falls into it. The vessel is filled with small stones and bits of
broken china, and answers admirably. Out of a batch of about two
hundred eggs brought from Stormontfield, only fifteen were found to
have turned opaque in the first five weeks. Eggs hatched in this homely
way are very serviceable, as one can examine them day by day and note
how they progress, and in due time observe the development of the fish
for a few days. The young animals can only be kept in the saucer about
ten or twelve days, and should then be placed in a larger vessel or be
thrown into a river.
As regards England, I should like to see one of the great rivers of
that country turned into a gigantic salmon “manufactory.” Ponds might
be readily constructed on one or two places of the Severn, or on some
of the other suitable salmon streams of England or Wales, capable of
turning out a million fish per annum, and at a comparatively trifling
cost. The formation of the ponds would be the chief expense; a couple
of men could watch and feed the fry with the greatest ease. The size
adopted might be three times that of the ponds on the river Tay, and
the original cost of these was less than £500. I would humbly submit
that the ponds should be constructed after the manner of the plan I
have elsewhere given. Except by the protecting of the spawn and the
young fish from their numerous enemies, there is no way of meeting
the present great demand for salmon, which, when in season, is in the
aggregate of greater value than the best butchers’ meat. The salmon is
an excellent fish to work with in a piscicultural sense, because it is
large enough to bear a good deal of handling, and it is very accessible
to the operations of mankind, because of the instinct which leads it to
spawn in the fresh water instead of the sea. It is only such a fish as
this monarch of the brook that would individually pay for artificial
breeding, for, having a high money value as an animal, it is clear that
salmon-culture would in time become as good a way of making money as
cattle-feeding or sheep-rearing.
There are waste places in England—the Essex marshes, for instance, or
the fens of Norfolk—where it would be profitable to cultivate eels
or other fish after the manner of the inhabitants of Comacchio. I
observed lately some details of a plan to rescue a quantity of land
in Essex from the water; it would perhaps pay as well to convert
the broad acres in question, from their being near the great London
market, into a fish-farm. The English people are fond of eels, and
would be able to consume any quantity that might be offered for sale,
and the place being in such close proximity to the Thames, other fish
might be cultivated as well. All the best portions of the hydraulic
apparatus of Comacchio might be imitated, and to suit the locality,
such other portions as might be required could be invented. The art
of pisciculture is but in its infancy, and we may all live in the
hope of seeing great water farms—but, to be profitable, they must be
gigantic—for the cultivation of fish, in the same sense as we have
extensive grazing or feeding farms for the breeding and rearing of
cattle.
In Ireland, Mr. Thomas Ashworth, of the Galway fisheries, finds it as
profitable and as easy to breed salmon as it is to rear sheep. His
fisheries are a decided success; and, if we except the cost of some
extensive engineering operations in forming fish-passes to admit of
a communication with the sea, the cost of his experiments has been
trifling and the returns exceptionally large. Mr. Ashworth put into
his fisheries no less than a million and a half of salmon eggs in
the course of two seasons—viz., 659,000 eggs in 1861, and 770,000 in
1862.[3] I am anxious to obtain a consecutive and detailed account of
the operations carried out by the Messrs. Ashworth, but have not been
able to get correct particulars. Mr. Ashworth has lately visited the
oyster-farms of the Isle of Re, and has a high opinion of the efforts
made for the multiplication of that favourite mollusc. He has very
obligingly communicated to me a number of interesting statistics as to
French oyster-culture, which I have incorporated into my account of the
shell-fish fisheries.
Two recent achievements in the art of fish-culture, or at any rate in
the art of acclimatisation, deserve to be chronicled in this division
of the “Harvest of the Sea.” I allude to the successful introduction
into Australia of the British salmon, and the equally successful
bringing to this country of a foreign fish—the _Silurus glanis_.
Grave doubts at one time prevailed among persons interested in
acclimatisation and pisciculture as to whether or not it were possible
to introduce the British salmon into the waters of Australia; and an
interesting controversy was about three years ago carried on in various
journals as to the best way of taking out the fish to that country.
Those very wise people who never do anything, but are largely endowed
with the gift of prophecy, at once proclaimed that it could not be
done; that it was impossible to take the salmon out to Australia, etc.
etc. But happily for the cause of progress in natural science, and the
success of this particular experiment, there were men who had resolved
to carry it out and who would not be put down. Mr. Francis Francis,
Mr. Frank Buckland, and Mr. J. A. Youl, took a leading part in the
achievement; but before they fell upon their successful plan of taking
out the ova in ice, hot discussions had ensued as to how the salmon
could be introduced into the rivers of the Australian Continent. Many
plans were suggested: some for carrying out the young fish in tanks,
and others for taking out the fructified ova, so that the process of
hatching might be carried on during the voyage. One ingenious person
promulgated a plan of taking the parr in a fresh-water tank a month
or two before it changed into a smolt, saying that after the change
it would be easy to keep the smolts supplied with _fresh_ salt water
direct from the sea as the ship proceeded on her voyage.
The mode ultimately adopted was to pack up the ova in a bed of ice,
experiments having first been made with a view to test the plan. For
that purpose a large number of ova were deposited in an ice-house in
order to ascertain how long the ripening of the egg could be deferred—a
condition of the experiment of course being that the egg should remain
quite healthy. The Wenham Lake Ice Company were so obliging as to allow
boxes containing salmon and trout ova, packed in moss, to be placed
in their ice vaults, and to afford every facility for the occasional
examination of the eggs. Satisfactory results being obtained—in other
words, it having been proved that the eggs of the salmon could with
perfect safety be kept in ice for a period exceeding the average time
of a voyage to Australia—it was therefore resolved that a quantity
of eggs, properly packed in ice, should be sent out. The result of
this experiment is now well known, most of the daily papers having
chronicled the successful exportation of the ova, and announced that
the fish had come to life and were thriving in their foreign home.
I do not wish to weary my readers, but must crave their indulgence
while I give a few of the more interesting details connected with this
important experiment.
The number of ova sent out to Australia was 100,000 salmon and 3000
trout. The vessel selected for the conveyance of the eggs was the
_Norfolk_, which on one or two occasions had made very rapid voyages.
The ova were procured from the Tweed, the Severn, the Ribble, and the
Dovey rivers; thus England, Scotland, and Wales contributed to this
precious freight. One hundred and sixty-four boxes, containing about
90,000 ova, were placed at the bottom of the ice-house, with a solid
mass of ice nine feet thick on the top, so that every particle of this
mass must melt before the ova would suffer. Sixteen boxes, containing
above 13,000 ova, were placed in other parts of the ice-house, with ice
below and above, as well as all round the boxes. The ova were taken
between the 13th and 15th January, placed on board the ship on the
18th, and the _Norfolk_ left the docks on the morning of the 21st, and
Plymouth on the 28th January. Thirty tons of Wenham Lake ice were used
in the experiment.
The ship arrived at Hobson’s Bay, Melbourne, on the 15th of April,
having been seventy-seven days on the voyage. A few of the boxes
containing the eggs were at once opened and placed in a suitable
hatching apparatus, but the larger portion were sent off to Tasmania
and reached Hobart Town on the 20th of April, where they were at once
deposited in the pond which had been carefully prepared for them on
the river Plenty. The following extract from a letter, written by the
Hon. Dr. Officer, Speaker of the House of Assembly, will show what
was done on the arrival of the eggs:—“Soon after the arrival of the
first half of the boxes, the process of opening them and depositing
the ova in their watery beds commenced, and you may be sure an anxious
process it was. In the first two boxes that were opened by far the
greater number of the ova had perished, but as we proceeded much more
fortunate results were obtained, and in many of the packages the living
predominated over the dead. I could not attempt to state to you, even
approximately, at the present moment, the actual number of healthy ova
that were found in the moss and placed in the hatching-boxes, beyond
saying that they amount to many thousands, and are amply sufficient,
if they should all continue to thrive and should become living fish,
to insure the complete success of our experiment. All the boxes have
now been opened except fifteen, and the ova first taken out have been
about twenty-four hours in the water. Among these some of them can
be observed with the eyes quite prominent, and visibly indicating the
near approach of hatching, so that not many days will elapse until the
ultimate result of the experiment is known. The remnant of the ice,
amounting to about eight tons, obtained from the _Norfolk_, was brought
up here with very little loss, and has of course been used in cooling
the water in the hatching-boxes. Mr. Ramsbottom thinks it will last
as long as he will require its aid, although it melts very quickly.
The water of the Plenty, which had fallen below 50 degrees, had been
again raised by a week of warm sunny weather to 54 degrees, which was
its temperature yesterday, but it was reduced to 45 degrees by the
introduction of ice. To-day the weather has been more suitable, and
the natural temperature is not much over 50 degrees, and will in all
probability soon decline several degrees lower. One or two of the ova
which were deposited in the water in apparently sound health have been
observed to become opaque and die, while some others have been seen to
retain all their clearness. These observations have necessarily been of
very limited extent. In one of the two boxes of trout ova, nearly all
were dead; in the other nearly all alive, and of a remarkably clear and
brilliant appearance. These have been placed in a compartment separated
from the salmon-boxes.”
The commissioners appointed to receive the ova sent to Tasmania made a
formal report to the Government of the colony. One of the local papers
supplies a summary of what was reported, which is as follows:—“They
state that upon examination of the cases on arrival, it was found that
a close and almost unvarying relation existed between the fate of
the ova and the condition of the moss in which they were enveloped.
Where the moss retained its natural green hue and elasticity, there
a large proportion of the ova retained a healthy vitality; where,
on the contrary, the moss was of a brown colour, and in a collapsed
or compressed form, few of the ova were found alive, and all were
more or less entangled in a network of fungus. The smallest amount of
mortality was invariably found to have taken place in those boxes in
which the moss had been most loosely packed and the ova subjected to
the least amount of pressure. On the 4th of May the first trout made
its appearance, followed on the succeeding day by the first salmon that
had ever been seen in Australia, or south of the equator. The further
hatching of the trout and salmon proceeded very slowly for some days,
but then became more rapid—especially among the trout. Among these the
process was completed about the 25th May, producing upwards of two
hundred healthy fish. The hatching of the salmon is more protracted,
and was not concluded until the 8th June, on which day the last little
fish was observed making its escape from the shell. As they continued
to make their appearance from day to day, their numbers were counted by
Mr. Ramsbottom with tolerable accuracy up to about 1000, after which
it was no longer possible to keep any reckoning. The great undertaking
of introducing the salmon and trout into Tasmania has now, the
commissioners believe, been successfully accomplished. Few countries of
the same extent possess more rivers suited to the nature and habits of
this noble fish than Tasmania. A stranger acquainted with the salmon
rivers of Europe could scarcely behold the ample stream and sparkling
waters of the Derwent without fancying that they were already the home
of the king of fish. And the Derwent is but one of many other large and
ever-flowing rivers almost equally suited to become the abode of the
salmon. When these rivers have been stocked, they cannot fail to become
a source of considerable public revenue, and of profit and pleasure to
the people.”
Mr. Ramsbottom, a son of the well-known English practical
pisciculturist, went out in charge of the eggs, and aided in their
accouchement, watching over the progress of the experiment with much
zeal. Very great anxiety was evinced by those interested for the
proper hatching out of the eggs, and the mortality which was soon
visible among the ova—it was at one time at the rate of one hundred
each day—was viewed with great alarm. The first eggs were hatched in
the ponds of Tasmania. Of the Victoria consignment, the first egg was
hatched at an ice company’s establishment on the 7th of May, twenty-two
days after the arrival of the ship. In a letter, dated 11th May 1864,
Dr. Officer communicates many interesting details of the experiment, as
the following extract will show:—“By our last out-going mail I reported
the hatching of the first trout and the first salmon on May 4 and 5.
We have now forty trout and nine salmon, but of the latter two are
deformed, and, therefore, not likely to survive long. The first-born
salmon is now nine days old, and is quite healthy and visibly grown.
The mortality among the ova, which had been about one hundred per diem
for some days, has very much decreased again, and for the last two days
has been quite trifling. The weather and temperature of the water have
continued favourable. The temperature of the Plenty and ponds has not
exceeded 49 degrees, nor descended below 46 degrees. This equality is
of course highly conducive to the health and progress of our charge.
We expected to have seen more salmon by this time, but our impatience
has outrun probability and the teachings of experience. The authorities
tell us that a few always precede the great body of fish by a good many
days, and are not usually so vigorous as those that are hatched at a
later period. As to the trout we may, I think, regard them as safe.
Only one out of the whole number hatched has died. As I looked at their
box this afternoon, I observed several in the act of escaping from the
shell. Mr. Ramsbottom’s attentions are indefatigable, and, I believe,
nothing has been neglected that could insure success.”
The process of hatching was much more protracted than was anticipated;
it was not till the 8th of June that the last of the eggs gave forth
its little tenant. An account of the daily hatching was kept up till
the time that 1000 of the eggs had arrived at maturity, but after that
the hatching went on with such rapidity as to render it impossible to
keep a correct record. Up to the 16th of June the trout had not been
artificially fed, but for all that they looked healthy and grew fat.
Mr. Ramsbottom computed that he had at least 3000 healthy salmon,
rather a small percentage certainly to obtain out of the 30,000 eggs,
but quite sufficient to solve the grand problem of whether or not it
were possible to introduce the British salmon into Australian waters.
The latest accounts tell us that the young parr are doing well, though
they are not growing so fast as the trout.[4] The further progress of
the experiment will be watched with great anxiety both at home and
abroad. The Tasmanian Legislature have voted a further sum of £800
for the purpose of introducing another batch of ova; this sum will be
augmented by £400 voted by the Victorian Acclimatisation Society; so
that no means will be left untried to bring to a successful conclusion
this great experiment—the ultimate result of which, I have no doubt,
will be, that the salmon will become as valuable a fish in the waters
of the great Australian Continent as it is in the waters of our own
islands.
The naturalisation of fish, to which a brief reference has already been
made, is a subject that is not very well understood; but so far as
practical experience goes, I have seen nothing to prevent our breeding
in England some of the most productive foreign kinds. Among the fishes
of China, for instance, in addition to the golden carp—now quite
common here, and bred in thousands in nearly every factory pond, and
which is looked upon as simply an ornamental fish—there is the lo-in,
or king of fish, which frequently measures seven feet in length, and
weighs from fifty to two hundred pounds, the flesh being excellent;
the lien-in-wang and the kan-in, almost as good, and even larger than
the other. Then there is the li-in, the usual weight of which is about
fifteen pounds, and is said to be of a much finer flavour than our
European carp. There are many other choice fishes of exquisite flavour,
which it is unnecessary to enumerate; but I have no doubt that, besides
these natives of Chinese seas, there are numerous other fine fish that
might be acclimatised in our rivers and firths. The seir fish of Ceylon
may be named: it is a kind of scomberoid, and in shape and size is
similar to the British salmon. We must not, however, build ourselves
much on the acclimatisation of foreign fish, especially tropical fish,
as—although fish can bear great extremes of temperature—it would be
no easy matter to habituate them to our climate. Indeed some writers
think it will be found impossible to habituate tropical fish, however
valuable, to our cold waters, but the experiment is, I believe, being
tried in France. The bass of Lake Wennern may also be mentioned as a
suitable fish for British waters, as well as the ombre chevalier of
the Lake of Geneva, a few of which latter are now, I believe, along
with some other varieties, being tried in the river Thames. So great is
the increasing interest of pisciculture becoming, that new ideas are
being daily thrown out regarding it. A few months ago a writer in the
_Times_ suggested the introduction of a white fish from the Canadian
lakes to our fresh waters:—“This fish (_Coregonus albus_), of the
salmon family, is from three to four pounds weight, as delicious as a
Dublin Bay haddock when fresh, and when barrelled considered a luxury
in the Central and Southern States of America and the West Indies,
bringing 50 per cent over the price of barrelled trout. Different from
our fresh-water fish, it is a vegetarian, living on weeds and moss. It
is a great article of food in the North-Western States of America and
Canada, the exports of it being $464,479 in 1861 from the states on the
lakes; but I have no return from Canada, which may be about one-half
more, making a total of over $700,000, or £140,000 a year.”
The latest achievement in pisciculture has been the introduction to
this part of Europe of “the Wels” (_Silurus glanis_), an interesting
account of which lately appeared in the _Field_ newspaper. Great
expectations have been formed that this gigantic fish may be
successfully reared in England. It is, I believe, the largest European
fresh-water fish, commonly attaining a weight of from fifty to
eighty pounds, and individuals have been found of the extraordinary
size of four cwts.! Dr. Gunther, the eminent ichthyologist, remarks
that this is the only foreign fish which it would be worth while to
introduce into this country; and thinks that, in several of our lakes,
particularly those in peat soil, it might be usefully placed.
[Illustration: SILURUS GLANIS.]
The following particulars regarding this new food fish have been
printed by the Acclimatisation Society, to whom the greatest praise
is due for its introduction:—Its appearance is not pleasant, the
large flattened head having a capacious mouth, which is capable of
seizing the largest kind of prey; so that if this fish be successfully
propagated in our streams and lakes, the pike, the water-wolf of the
British waters, will meet with more than its match. The habits of
the _Silurus glanis_ are said to be most ferocious, and its growth,
provided there be a sufficient supply of food, very rapid. The body
is less elongated than the eel, and there are, stretching from the
head, long tapering barbels; the eyes are frog-like, and there are many
other points of resemblance to the frog. The new fish is like the eel
in its habits, being a wallowing fish, fond of burrowing in the mud,
and hiding amongst the rotten roots of trees. There are dark charges
made against some of the largest specimens of the _Silurus glanis_,
in the stomachs of which it is reported that portions of human bodies
have been found. However, this is probably an exaggeration. There can,
however, be no doubt of the extraordinary appetite and fierceness of
this fish. In the floods of the Danube the silurus finds plentiful
prey in the multitude of frogs which pass into the river; but at other
times, fish, small animals, worms, indeed anything which comes near,
afford a supply of food; and there may be fear that, notwithstanding
the valuable qualities of the silurus as a means of supply to our
tables, it may more than balance its value in this way by the immense
destruction of fish which is needed for its support. It is said that
the silurus, when the prey is plentiful, will attain over fifty-six
pounds in four years; and Englishmen who have tasted it report that
in flavour it is superior to the salmon. Specimens of the wels have
been brought alive from a distance of nearly two thousand miles to the
station of the society at Twickenham by the exertions of Sir Stephen
Lakeman and Mr. Lowe, a gentleman who takes a great interest in all
questions of natural science. In all, fourteen of these young fish were
brought from Kapochien, in Wallachia, where Sir Stephen Lakeman has an
estate. The Argich river, which flows past there, abounds in these and
other valuable fish, which are found more or less throughout central
Europe and in Scandinavia. In the Danube and many of its tributaries
the number is abundant; and in those wide waters the _Silurus glanis_
is said to reach the enormous weight of three hundred pounds.