France has lately received from Guiana, South
America, a living creature whose description
sounds as fabulous as that of any of the above
named requirements. The Jardin Zoologique
d'Acclimatation is now possessed of a bird
belonging to the stilt legged family, and called
the Agami  (Psophia crepitans), which is to the
poultry what the shepherd's dog is to the flock.
Although not bigger than a hen, it will lead a
flock of fowls, and even of sheep, to the fields,
will make them obey it, keep order amongst
them, hold watch over them all day long,
prevent them from straggling, and bring them back
to the farm in the evening, exactly as a dog
takes care of his sheep. It will preside over the
feeding of chickens and ducklings, never touching
a morsel itself, and not allowing the strong
and the full grown to take their share until the
little ones first have had their fill.

Here is an object to attract the crowd. But
such a society can devote itself to more useful
objects. Therefore is Mr. Frank Buckland
right in desiring to interest friends abroad to
send things over for experiment, no matter how
humble or how common they may be in their
native country, provided they are but useful
His Acclimatisation Society devotes itself
energetically to fish.

Many of our domestic animals derive a great
part of their value from their fecundity. Their
annual offspring may be counted by tens, or by
twenties, or by thirties, without taking account
of eggs produced besides. This fecundity is
very great, if compared with that of other species
belonging to the same classes; but what is it
compared with the fecundity of fishes?
Comparative sterility. To count the eggs of fish is
impossible; they can only be calculated
approximately. The pike and the tench give
several hundred thousand, the carp and the
mackerel more than half a million, the plaice six
millions, the sturgeon seven millions six hundred
thousand, the turbot nine, and the cod eleven
millions. Set a single pair of such fish to breed
in an unstocked fish pond, even were it the
Mediterranean Sea, and they will give you a
practical illustration of infinity.

For, another advantage is, that fish cost
nothing to feed. As a race, they do not suffer
from scanty provisions, but the contrary. Man
gives what he can to his carp and his pike;
Nature gives what she can to her whiting and
her cod; but when the ordinary rations fail, as
fail they must, further difficulty is cut short by
the hungry claimants eating one another. So
much the. better for us. The survivors are all
the more profitable and succulent in consequence
of this natural selection. They thus add a
compound interest of flesh to the skin and bone
which was the capital with which they started in
life.

The introduction, therefore, of a new kind of
fish promises this great satisfaction— that the
introducer may reasonably expect to see and
enjoy the results of his difficult and costly
attempt. The persons who first brought turkeys
from America and silkworms from China, had
scarcely an opportunity of deciding whether
"turkey boil'd" and "turkey spoil'd" were a
rhyme founded on reason, or of ascertaining
their lady's preference for satin, velvet, or moire
antique. But whoever will efficiently patronise
one or more of the candidates we are about to
nominate may reckon that, in the course of a
very few years, Blackwall and Greenwich may
adorn their feasts with the piscine novelty due
to their efforts.

Fish-breeding and the introduction of foreign
fishes has undoubtedly to contend with popular
prejudice. Boccius's treatise, published in 1848,
was regarded by many as the amusing dream of
a visionary speculator. The fishermen Rémy
and his associate Gehin, both now deceased, the
first men in France who, after rediscovering,
practically applied the artificial rearing of trout,
were looked upon as crazed by their
compassionate neighbours, who caused masses to be
said for their restoration to sanity. And yet we
have plenty of instances of the naturalisation of
fish in foreign countries. In England, the
grayling is believed to have been introduced by
the monks. About the foreign origin of the
vendace, now the pride of Dumfriesshire, there
is still less hesitation. The carp is quite a
travelled fish; it is not two centuries since it first
visited Denmark. Whence England has it is
uncertain. Cuvier believed it to be a native of
Central Europe; but most living zoologists are
of opinion that it was first domesticated—that
is, bred in ponds—in Asia. Asia Minor is
probably its native home, where it is found in
several lakes, in immense quantities. The gold
fish has made its way wherever there are
civilised people to admire pretty things.

Those acquainted with marshy districts know
that there are immense tracts (not so much
in England as in less highly cultivated
countries), that there are fens and sloughs, miles
in extent, capable in their present state neither
of grazing flesh nor of harbouring fish. In
continental Europe, unsolid swamps of this
kind are far from being so rare, as is
desirable, not to mention those that exist in the
territories of our colonists and of our grandsons,
the North Americans. The readiest way of
reclaiming them, is to intersect them with a
network of canals communicating with ponds or
small lakes excavated at convenient distances;
and with the earthy materials so obtained to
consolidate the nascent meadow. The result is,
both firm pasturage for cattle and clear open
water tenantable by fish.

Fish of some kind will make their appearance
there; for Nature abhors a vacuum. But
bushels of sticklebacks, and waggon loads of
uneatable bream, such as swarm in the Norfolk
broads, are of little alimentary usefulness to
man. They reach his table indirectly, after
being devoured by pike, and also by eels, in
their youthful stages. As the best breeds of
kine are sought to crop the mead, so might the
best species of fish be made to scour the
watercourses. In this arrangement there is no
antagonism. A large country, or even a large