1902 Encyclopedia > Pisiculture

Pisiculture




PISCICULTURE. This art as at present pursued is not limited to those animals which are grouped by zoologists in the class of Pisces. " Fishery " is now under-stood to signify the exploitation of all products of the sea, lake, and river, the capture of whales, turtles, pearls, corals, and sponges, as well as of fish proper. The pur-pose of fish-culture (or aquiculture, as it is in France more appropriately named) is to counteract by reparative and also by preventive measures the destructive effects of fishery.

The possibility of exterminating aquatic animals within the restricted limits of a lake or a river cannot be doubted ; authorities are decidedly at variance, however, as to the extent of the influence of man upon the abundance of life in the open seas. Distinction must be made between the extermination of a species, even in a restricted locality, and the destruction of a fishery; the former is very unusual, and is seemingly impossible in the case of oceanic species, but the latter, especially for limited regions, is of almost yearly occurrence. Aquatic mammals, such as seals, may be en-tirely exterminated, especially when, like the fur seal, they forsake the water for a season and resort to the land for breeding purposes. The fur seals of the Pacific and Ant-arctic are now nearly gone, except in two groups of islands, the Pribylovs in Alaska and the Commander Islands in Siberia, where they enjoy Government protection, the islands being leased to the Alaska Commercial Company by whom only a stated number, all non-breeding males, may be killed each year, the permanence of the fishery being thus perfectly/ secured. Aquatic mammals also which never leave the water, like whales and sirenians, being conspicuous by reason of their size, and incapable of rapid multiplication, may, especially when they breed near the shore, suffer extermination. As examples may be cited the Arctic sea cow (Rhytina stelleri) and the Pacific grey whale (Rhachianectes glaucus), the former extinct, the latter having practically become so within the present century. The sperm whale is also rapidly dis-appearing. In the case of fixed animals like the oyster, the corals, and the sponges, again, the colonies or beds may be swept out of existence exactly as forests are hewn down. The native oyster beds of Europe are for the most part gone, and still more rapid has been the recent destruc-tion of the oyster reefs in Pocomoke Sound, Maryland, a large estuary, formerly very productive—the result being due more directly to the choking up of the beds by the rubbish dragged over them by dredges, and the demolition of ledges suitable for the reception of young spat, than to the removal of all the adult oysters, which could, of course, never have been effected. The preservation of oyster-beds is a matter of vital importance to the United States, for oyster-fishing, unsupported by oyster-culture, will soon destroy the employment of tens of thousands and a cheap and favourite food of tens of millions of the people. Some-thing may undoubtedly be effected by laws which shall allow each bed to rest for a period of years after each season of fishing upon it. It is, however, the general belief that shell-fish beds must be cultivated as carefully as are garden beds, and that this can be done only by giving to indivi-duals rights in submerged lands, similar to those which may be acquired upon shore. It is probable that the present unregulated methods will prevail until the dredging of the natural beds shall cease to be remunerative, and that the oyster industry will then pass from the improvi-dent fishermen to the painstaking oyster-grower, with a corresponding increase in price and decrease in consump-tion. Such a change has already taken place in France and Holland, and to a large extent in England, but there appear to be almost unsurmountable difficulties in the way of protecting the property of oyster-culturists from depre-dations—difficulties apparently as formidable in England as in America.

Fishes in ponds, lakes, or streams are quickly exter-minated unless the young be protected, the spawning season undisturbed, and wholesale methods of capture prohibited. Salmon and trout streams are preserved in all countries of northern Europe; and in Canada also a large service of fishery wardens is maintained. In the United States there are in many of the older common-wealths excellent codes of laws for the preservation of fish and game, which are enforced by anglers' clubs. A river may quickly be emptied of its anadromous visitors, salmon, shad, and alewives, by over-fishing in the spawning season, as well as by dams which cut off the fish from their spawning-grounds. Numerous rivers in Europe and America might be named in which this has occurred. In the same way, sea fishes approaching the coasts to spawn in the bays or upon the shoals may be embarrassed, and the numbers of each school decimated,—particularly if, as in the case of the herring, the eggs are adhesive and become entangled in nets. Sea fishes spawning in estuaries are affected much in the same manner as the salmon in rivers, though in a less degree, by wholesale capture in stationary nets. The shad and alewife fisheries of the United States are protected by an extensive code of laws, varying in the several States and in the different rivers of each State. The most satisfactory laws appear to be those which regulate the dates when fishery must commence and end, and prescribe at least one day in each week, usually Sunday, during which the ascent of the fish may not be interrupted. Migratory, semi-migratory, or wandering fishes, ranging singly or in schools over broad stretches of ocean, the mackerels, the tunnies, the sardines or pilchards, the menhaden, the bluefish, the bonitoes, and the sque-teague, stand apparently beyond the influence of human agency, especially since, so far as is known, they spawn at a distance from the coast, or since the adults, when about to spawn, cannot be reached by any kind of fishery apparatus. Their fecundity is almost beyond comprehension, and in many instances their eggs float free near the surface, and are quickly disseminated over broad areas. The conclu-sions gained by Prof. Baird, U.S. commissioner of fisheries, agree exactly with those of Prof. Huxley, that the number of any given kind of oceanic fish killed by man is perfectly insignificant when compared with the destruction effected by their natural enemies. Almost any body of water, be it a bay or sound, or be it the covering of a ledge or shoal at sea, may be over-fished to such a degree that fishing becomes unprofitable, especially if fishing be carried on in the spawning season. In this manner, no doubt, have the coasts of England been robbed of the formerly abundant supplies of turbot and sole.

The character of the various destructive influences which man brings to bear upon the inhabitants of the water and their effects having thus been briefly noticed, the student of fish culture is confronted by the question, What can be done to neutralize these destructive tendencies 1 There are evidently three things to do:—(1) to preserve fish waters, especially those inland, as nearly as it may be possible in their normal condition; (2) to prohibit waste-ful or immoderate fishing; and (3) to put into practice the art of fish breeding—(a) to aid in maintaining a natural supply, (b) to repair the effects of past improvi-dences, and (c) to increase the supply beyond its natural limits rapidly enough to meet the necessities of a con-stantly increasing population.

The preservation of normal conditions in inland waters is comparatively simple. A reasonable system of forestry and water-purification is all that is required; and this is needed not only by the fish in the streams but by the people living on the banks. It has been shown that a river which is too foul for fish to live in is not fit to flow near the habitations of man. Obstructions, such as dams, may, in most instances, be overcome by fish ladders. The salmon has profited much by those devices in Europe, and the immense dams in American rivers will doubtless be passable even for shad and alewives if the new system of fishway construction devised by Col. M'Donald, and now being applied on the Savannah, James, and Potomac, and other large rivers, fulfils its present promises of success.

The protection of fish by law is what legislators have been trying to effect for many centuries, and the success of their efforts must be admitted to have been very slight indeed. Great Britain has at present two schools of fishery-economists,—the one headed by Prof. Huxley, opposed to legislation, save for the preservation of fish in inland waters; the other, of which Dr Prancis Day is the chief leader, advocating a strenuous legal regulation of sea fisheries also. Continental Europe is by tradition and belief committed to the last-named policy. In the United States, on the contrary, public opinion is generally anta-gonistic to fishery legislation; and Prof. Baird, the com-missioner of fisheries, after carrying on for fourteen years, with the aid of a large staff of scientific specialists, inves-tigations upon this very question, has not yet become satisfied that laws are necessary for the perpetuation of the sea fisheries, nor has he ever recommended to Congress the enactment of any kind of fishery laws.

Just here we meet the test problem in fish culture. Many of the most important commercial fisheries of the world, the cod fishery, the herring fishery, the sardine fishery, the shad and alewife fishery, the mullet fishery, the salmon fishery, the whitefish fishery, the smelt fishery, and many others, owe their existence to the fact that once a year these fishes gather together in closely swimming schools, to spawn in shallow water, on shoals, or in estua-ries and rivers. There is a large school of quasi econo-mists who clamour for the complete prohibition of fishing during spawning time. Their demand demonstrates their ignorance. Deer, game, birds, and other land animals may easily be protected in the breeding season, and so may trout and other fishes of strictly local habits. Not so the anadromous and pelagic fishes. If they are not caught in the spawning season, they cannot be caught at all.





The writer recently heard a prominent fish-culturist advocating before a committee of the United States Senate the view that shad should not be caught in the rivers because they come into the rivers to spawn. When asked what would become of the immense shad-fisheries if this were done, he ventured the remark that doubtless some ingenious person would invent a means of catching them at sea. The fallacy in the argument of these economists lies, in part, in. supposing that it is more destructive to the progeny of a given fish to kill it when its eggs are nearly ripe than to kill the same fish eight or ten months earlier. We must not, however, ignore the counter-argu-ment. Such is the mortality among fish that only an infinitesimal percentage attains to maturity. Professor Möbius has shown that for every grown oyster upon the beds of Schleswig-Holstein 1,045,000 have died. Only a very small percentage, perhaps not greater than this, of the shad or the smelt ever comes upon the breeding grounds. Some consideration, then, ought to be shown to those individuals which have escaped from their enemies and have come up to deposit the precious burden of eggs. How much must they be protected 1 Here the fish-cul-turist comes in with the proposition that " it is cheaper to make fish so plentiful by artificial means that every fisher-man may take all he can catch than to enforce a code of protection laws."

The salmon rivers of the Pacific slope of the United States, the shad rivers of the east, and the whitefish fisheries of the lakes are now so thoroughly under control by the fish-culturist that it is doubtful if any one will venture to contradict his assertion. The question is whether he can extend his domain to other species.

Fish-culture in a restricted sense must sooner or later be resorted to in all densely populated countries, for, with the utmost protection, nature unaided can do but little to meet the natural demand for fish to eat. Pond-culture (Teichwirthschaft), has been practised for many centuries, and the carp and the gold-fish have become domesticated like poultry and cattle. The culture of carp is an import-ant industry in China and in Germany, though perhaps not more so than it was in England three and four centuries ago; the remains of ancient fish-stews may be seen upon almost every large estate in England, and particularly in the vicinity of old monasteries. Strangely enough, not a single well-conducted carp-pond exists in England to-day to perpetuate the memory of the tens of thousands which were formerly sustained, and the carp, escaping from cultivation, have reverted to a feral state and are of little value. Until improved varieties of carp are introduced from Germany, carp-culture can never be made to succeed in England. Carp-culture is rapidly coming into favour in the United States ; a number of young scale carp and leather carp were imported in 1877 for breeding purposes, and the fish commission has since distributed them to at least 30,000 ponds. Two railway cars especi-ally built for the purpose are employed during the autumn months delivering cargoes of carp, often making journeys of over three thousand miles, and special ship-ments have been made to Mexico and Brazil. The carp is not recommended as a substitute for the salmon, but is especially suited to regions remote from the sea where better-flavoured fish cannot be had in a fresh condition.

A kind of pond-culture appears to have been practised by the ancient Egyptians, though in that country as in ancient Greece and Rome, the practice" seems to have been similar to that now employed in the lagoons of the Adriatic and of Greece, and to have consisted in driving the young fish of the sea into artificial enclosures or vivaria, when they were kept until they were large enough to be used.

The discovery of the art of artificially fecundating the ova of fish must apparently be accredited to Stephen Ludwig Jacobi of Hohenhausen in Westphalia, who, as early as 1748, carried on successful experiments in breed-ing salmon and trout. The importance of this discovery was thoroughly appreciated at the time, and from 1763 to 1800 was a fruitful subject of discussion in England, France, and Germany. George III. of England in 1771 granted to Jacobi a life pension. It has been claimed by many French writers that the process of artificial fecunda-tion was discovered as early as 1420 by Dom Pinchon, a monk in the abbey of Reome, but this claim is but a feeble one, not having been advanced until 1854, and it is believed by many that the practice of the French monk was simply to collect and transplant the eggs which he had already found naturally fertilized. However interest-ing to the antiquarian, the proceedings of Dom Pinchon had no influence upon the progress of fish-culture. To Germany, beyond question, belongs the honour of discover-ing and carrying into practical usefulness the art of fish-culture. Upon the estate of Jacobi, by the discoverer and his sons, it was carried on as a branch of agriculture for fully eighty years—from 1741 to 1825—though it was nearly a hundred years before public opinion was ripe for a general acceptance of its usefulness, a period during which its practice was never abandoned by the Germans.

Fish-culture in Britain was inaugurated in 1837 by Mr John Shaw, gamekeeper to the duke of Buccleuch at Dmmlanrig, who, in the course of ichthyological investiga-tions, had occasion to fecundate the eggs of salmon and rear the young ; and, as regards France, an illiterate fisher-man, Joseph Remy, living in the mountains of the Vosges, rediscovered, as it is claimed, or at any rate successfully practised, in association with Antoine Gehin, the culture of trout in 1842. The originality and practical influence of Bemy and Gehin's work appear to have been exaggerated by French writers. On the other hand the establishment in 1850 at Huningue (Hiiningen) in Alsace by the French Government of the first fish-breeding station, or " pisci-factory," as it was named by Professor Coste, is of great significance, since it marks the beginning of public fish-culture. The art discovered in Germany was practised in Italy as early as 1791 by Baufalini, in France in 1820, in Bohemia in 1824, in Great Britain in 1837, in Switzerland in 1842, in Norway under Government patronage in 1850, in Finland in 1852, in the United States in 1853, in Belgium, Holland, and Russia in 1854, in Canada about 1863, in Austria in 1865, in Australasia, by the intro-duction of English salmon, in 1862, and in Japan in 1877.

Artificial Propagation.—Sponges have been successfully multi-plied by cuttings, iike plants, in Austria and in Florida. Oysters have long been raised in artificial enclosures from spat naturally deposited upon artificial stools. The eggs of the American and Portuguese oysters have been artificially fecundated and the young hatched, and in July 1883 Mr John A. Ryder, embryologist of the U.S. Fish Commission, solved the most difficult problem in American oyster-culture by completing a mechanical device for pre-venting the escape of the newly hatched oysters while swimming about prior to fixation. The English oyster, being hermaphrodite, or monoecious, cannot be artificially propagated from the egg like the dioecious American species.

The fertilization of the fish egg is the simplest of processes, con-sisting, as every one knows, in simply pressing the ripe ova from the female fish into a shallow receptacle and then squeezing out the milt of the male upon them. Formerly a great deal of water was placed in the pan; now the " dry method," with only a little, discovered by the Russian Vrasski in 1854, is preferred. The eggs having been fertilized, the most difficult part of the task remains, namely, the care of the eggs until they are hatched, and the care of the young until they are able to care for themselves.

The apparatus employed is various in principle, to correspond to the physical peculiarities of the eggs. Fish-culturists divide eggs into four classes, viz. :—(1) heavy eggs, non-adhesive, whose specific gravity is so great that they will not float, such as the eggs of the salmon and trout; (2) heavy adhesive eggs, such as those of the herring, smelt, and perch ; (3) semi-buoyant eggs, like those of the shad and whitefish (Coregonus); and (4) buoyant eggs, like those of the cod and mackerel. (1) Heavy non-adhesive eggs are placed in thin layers either upon gravel, grilles of glass, or sheets of wire cloth, in receptacles through which a current of water is constantly passing. There are numerous forms of apparatus for eggs of this class, but the most effective are those in which a number of trays of wire cloth, sufficiently deep to carry single layers of eggs, are placed one upon the other in a box or jar into which the water enters from below, passing out at the top. (2) Heavy adhesive eggs are received upon bunches of twigs or frames of glass plates to which they adhere, and which are placed in receptacles through which water is passing. (3) Semi-buoyant eggs, or those whose specific gravity is but slightly greater than that of the water, require altogether different treatment. They are necessarily placed together in large numbers, and to prevent their settling upon the bottom of the receptacle it is necessary to introduce a gentle current from below. For many years these eggs could be hatched only in floating receptacles with wire-cloth bottoms, placed at an angle to the current of the stream in which they were fixed, the motion of which was utilized to keep the eggs in suspension. Later an arrangement of plunging-buckets was invented, cylindrical recep-tacles wdth tops and bottoms of wire cloth, which were suspended in rows from beams worked up and down at the surface of the water by machinery. The eggs in the cylinders were thus kept constantly in motion. Finally the device now most in favour was perfected ; this is a receptacle, conical, or at least with a constricted termination, placed with its apex downward, through which passes from below a strong current, keeping the eggs constantly suspended and in motion. This form of apparatus, of which the M'Donald and Clark hatching-jars are the most perfect development, may be worked in connexion with any common hydrant. (4) Floating eggs have been hatched only by means of rude contrivances for sustaining a lateral circular eddy of water in the receptacle.

The use of refrigerators, to retard the development of the eggs until such time as it is most convenient to take care of the fry, has been extensively introduced in the United States, and has been experimented upon in Germany.





The distinction between private and public fish-culture must be carefully observed. The maintenance of ponds for carp, trout, and other domesticated species is an industry to be classed with poultry-raising and bee-keeping, and its interest to the political economist is but slight. The proper function of public fish-culture is the stocking of the public waters with fish in which no individual can claim the right of property. This is being done in the rivers of the United States, with salmon, shad, and alewives, and in the lakes with whitefish. The use of steamships and steam machinery, the construction of refrigerating transportation cars, two of which, wdth a corps of trained experts, are constantly employed by the United States Fish Commission, moving fish and eggs from Maine to Texas, and from Maryland to California, and the maintenance of permanent hatching stations, seventeen in number, in different parts of the continent, are forms of activity only attainable by Government aid. Equally unattainable by private effort would be the enormous experiments in transplanting and acclimatizing fish in new waters,—such as the planting of Californian salmon in the rivers of the east, land-locked salmon and smelt in the lakes and rivers of the interior, and shad in California and the Mississippi valley, and the extensive acclimatization of German carp ; the two last-named experiments carried out within a period of three years have met with successes beyond doubt, and are of the greatest importance to the country ; the others have been more or less successful, though their results are not yet fully realized. It has been demonstrated, however, that the great river fisheries of the United States, which produced in 1880 48,000,000 lb of alewives, 18,000,000 lb of shad, 52,000,000 lb of salmon, besides bass, stur-geon, and smelt, and worth '' at first hand " between 4,000,000 and 6,000,000 dollars, are entirely under the control of the fish-culturist to sustain or to destroy, and are capable of immense extension.

Having now attempted to define the field of modern fish-culture, and to show what it has already accompdished, it remains to be stated what appear to be its legitimate aims and limitations.

The aims of modern fish-culture, as understood by the p>resent writer, are—(1) to arrive at a thorough knowledge of the life history from beginning to end of every species of economic value, the histories of the animals and plants upon which they feed or upon which their food is nourished, the histories of their enemies and friends, and the friends and foes of their enemies and friends, as well as the currents, temperatures, and other physical phenomena of the waters in relation to migration, reproduction, and growth ; and (2) to apply this knowledge in such a practical manner that every form of fish shall be at least as thoroughly under control as are now the salmon, the shad, the alewife, the carp, and the whitefish. Its limitations are precisely those of scientific agriculture and animal rearing, since, although certain physical conditions may constantly intervene to thwart man's efforts in any given direction, it is quite within the bounds of reasonable expecta-tion to be able to understand what these are, and how their effects are produced. An important consideration concerning the limita-tions of fish-culture must always be kept in mind in weighing the arguments for and against its success, viz., that effort towards the acclimatization of fishes in new waters is not fish-culture, but is simply one of the necessary experiments upon which fish-culture may be based. The introduction of carp from Germany to the United States was not fish-culture; it was an experiment; the experiment has succeeded, and fish-culture is now one of its results. The intro-duction of California salmon to the Atlantic slope was an experi-ment ; it has not succeeded; its failure has nothing to do wdth the success of fish-culture. If any one wants to see suc'cessful fish-culture in connexion with this fish let him go to the Sacramento river. The introduction of shad to the Pacific coast wTas an experiment; it succeeded ; shad culture can now be carried on without fear of failure by the Fish Commission of the Pacific States. An equally established success is whitefish culture in the Great Lakes. The experiments with cod and Spanish mackerel were not fish-culture, though it is hoped that they may yet lead up to it. And there is every reason to believe, from experiments in part completed, that the dominion of fish-culture may be extended in like manner to certain of the great sea fisheries, such as the cod, haddock, herring, mackerel, and Spanish mackerel fisheries.

Public fish-culture exists only in the United States and Canada. European fish-culturists have always operated with only small numbers of eggs. The hatchery of Sir James Maitland at Howieton near Stirling, Scotland, may be specially mentioned in this con-nexion, since it is undoubtedly the finest private fish-cultural establishment in the world. It is described in one of the Confer-ence papers of the International Fishery Exhibition.

The recent organization of the Scottish Fishery Board, and the establishment of a society for the biological investigation of the coasts of Great Britain, are indications that England, having at last recognized the importance of protecting its extensive fishery industries, will at no distant time become a leader in matters of fishery economy.

Holland, Germany, and Norway have hitherto been the only European nations manifesting intelligent enterprise in the con-sideration of fishery questions in general, although fair work has been done by Sweden and other countries in the treatment of limited special branches of this industry. In Germany the functions of the German Fishery Union (Deutscher Fiseherei-Verein) and of the commission for the investigation of the German seas (Ministerial-Kommission zur wissensehaftlichen Untersuchung der deutsehen Meere zu Kiel), taken together, represent practically the two divisions of the work of the United States Fish Commission, —propagation and investigation. The latter body is composed of a commission of scientific men, whose head is appointed by the Government; it is carried on with Government funds, but is not in any way subjected to Government control, the central headquarters being at Kiel instead of Berlin. The Fischerei-Verein is also a private body, under the patronage of the emperor, and with funds partly furnished by the Government and having also the general direction of the National Fish Cultural Society at Hiiningen. This, also, is not a bureau of any Government department, but managed entirely by its own officers. It is the only European fish-eries institution that has so far constituted a thoroughly successful experiment. The Netherlands Commission of Sea Fisheries (Collegie voor de Zecvisscherijen) is a body of fifteen men, chiefly workers in science, occupying a responsible position in the national economy, their function being "to advise Government in all subjects con-nected with the interest of the fisheries." During the twenty-five years of its existence, says its historian, '' the commission has con-stantly been consulted by Government on the different measures that might be beneficial, or on the abolition of others that were detrimental, to the fisheries." The Society for the Development of Norwegian Fisheries (Selskabet for de Norske Fiskericrs Fremme) is an organization independent of the Government, and electing its own officers, but receiving large grants from Government to carry on work precisely similar to that of the United States Commission. In 1882-83 these grants amounted to 49,000 kroner.

As an illustration of the interest manifested in fish-culture in the United States, it may be stated that from 1871 to 1883 $1,190,955 has been appropriated by Congress for the use of the United States Fish Commission, and that thirty-five of the State Governments have made special grants for fish-culture, in the aggregate equal to §1,101,000. To show the wholesale methods employed in this, a letter by Mr Livingston Stone, superintendent of one of the seventeen hatcheries supported by the United States Fish Commis-sion, that on the M 'Cloud river in California, may be quoted:—

"In the eleven years since the salmon-breeding station has been in operation 67,000,000 eggs have been taken, most of which have been distributed in the various States of the Union. Several millions, however, have been sent to foreign countries, including Germany, France, Great Britain, Denmark, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Canada, New Zealand. Australia, and the Sandwich Islands. About 15,000.000 have been hatched at the station, and the young fish placed in the M'Cloud and other tributaries of the Sacramento river. So great have been the benefits of this restocking of the Sacramento that the statistics of the salmon fisheries show that the annual salmon catch of the river has increased 5,000,000 pounds each year during the last few years."

Fifteen canneries now are fully supplied, whereas in 1872 the single establishment then on the river was obliged to close for lack of fish. In the two Government hatcheries at Alpena and North-ville, Michigan, there have been produced in the winter of 1883-84 over 100,000,000 eggs of the whitefish, Coregonus clupeiformis, and the total number of young fish to be placed in the Great Lakes this year by these and the various State hatcheries wdll exceed 225,000,000. The fishermen of the Great Lakes admit that but for public fish-culture half of them would be obliged to abandon their calling. Instances of great improvement might be cited in connexion with nearly every shad river in the United States. In the Potomac alone the annual yield has been brought up by the operations of fish-culture from 668,000 lb in 1877 to an average of more than 1,600,000 lb in recent years. In 1882 carp bred in the Fish Commission ponds in "Washington were distributed in lots of 20 to 10,000 applicants throughout every State and Territory, at an average distance of more than 900 miles, the total mileage of the shipments being about 9,000,000 miles, and the actual distance traversed by the transportation car 34,000 miles. There still exists in Europe some scepticism as to the beneficial results of fish-culture. Such doubts do not exist on the other side of the Atlantic, if the continuance from year to year of liberal grants of public money may be considered to be a test of public confidence.

Perhaps the best general treatises upon the methods of artificial propagation practised by pisciculturists are Herr Max Von Dem Borne's Fischzucht, Berlin, 1880, and from the philosophical standpoint, Dr Francis Day's Fish Culture, one of the handbooks of the International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883. The reports and bulletins of the United States Fish Commission, in twelve volumes, from 1873 to 1884, contain full descriptions of American methods, and discussions of all foreign discoveries and movements. Two prominent London journals, the Field and Land and Water, contain authoritative articles upon the subject, and the museum of fisheries and fish-culture at South Kensington, enriched as it has been by the contributions of exhibitors at the Fisheries Exhibition of 1883, is an excellent exponent of the methods and implements in use in the past and at present. For a histoiy of the subject see " Epochs in the History of Fish Culture," by G. Brown Goode, in Transactions of the American Fish Cultural Association (10th meeting, 1881, pp. 34-58), and " The Status of the United States Fish Commission in 1884," by the same author, in part xii. of the Report of that commission; and for a discussion of modern methods and apparatus, as shown at the late Fisheries Exhibition, the essays by Mr R. Edward Earll in the report of the United States commissioner to the exhibition and in Nature (Oct.'4, 1883). (G. B. G.)

Footnotes

127
Report of United States Fish Commission for 1883.

128
Bulletin, United States Fish Commission, 1883.
Transactions, American Fish Cultural Association, 1883.



The above article was written by: G. Brown Goode.




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