estate, is made up of various elements; pisciculture
is the agriculture of the watery portion.

The principles of pisciculture are now so well
established and understood, that, in France,
besides those who have taken up the art
seriously for profit, many persons pursue it as an
amusement. The English society endeavours
to carry out a like useful division of labour,
by proposing that those members who happen
to have facilities on their estates for experiments,
and who are willing to aid the objects of the
society, should undertake the charge of such
subjects for experiment as may be offered to
them by the society, periodically reporting
progress to the council. Let us hope that the
artificial rearing of fish will be undertaken by
numerous competent amateurs. It is highly
satisfactory to know that the Thames Angling
Preservation Society have determined to
establish a fish hatching apparatus at Sunbury,
backing their resolution by a liberal subscription;
and that the accomplished and enthusiastic
Secretary of the Acclimatisation Society, Mr.
Buckland, has undertaken the practical working
of the experiment.

But the friends of pisciculture, and of
acclimatisation in general, must avoid making those
sciences ridiculous by extravagant promises and
visionary expectations which will be contradicted
by the practical result. Fish breeding is the art
of multiplying fish, as agriculture is the art of
multiplying the fruits of the earth; it similarly
comprises the sowing, the sprouting, and the
development of the germs up to their full
maturity. The act of fishing is the harvest. To
suppose that the whole art is comprised in
the spawning of the fish and the hatching
of the fry, is the error of the farmer who
should consider his wheat crop safe in barn as
soon as the green blades appeared above ground.
The poor fisherman of the Vosges, Rémy, did not
fall into that mistake; he professed to restock
the exhausted streams—nothing more—and he
did it. His good sense was not led astray by
his imagination. Fish hatching establishments
are excellent instruments for the introduction of
species to localities where they do not yet exist.
The government establishment at Huningue (on
the French frontier, near Bâle, Switzerland) has
hitherto answered that purpose well. It
distributes eggs with intelligent liberality, and its
methods of fecundation have the merit of easy
application, and assures it a set of branch
establishments in every expedient locality. But
hatching is to little purpose, unless the feeding
of the fry be well assured; and with that
secured, some sort of river regulations or water
police must be maintained, unless all the trouble
already taken is to be rendered unavailing by
the greediness, the ill will, or the stupidity of
men.

The object hitherto aimed at by French
pisciculturists has been the multiplication of native
species, especially trout, ralher than the
introduction of foreign fish. The English society
likewise undertakes the spread of indigenous
animals from parts of the United Kingdom
where they are already known, to other localities
where they are not known; an excellent idea
which, if carried out, will disseminate over the
country, first the grayling; then the gwyniad of
the Welsh and Cumberland lakes, the freshwater
herring, a great boon to the poor, and
the delicate vendace of Lochmaben. Salmon
might be restored to every stream in the United
Kingdom that is not absolutely overladen with
an incubus of towns. The grand obstacles are
the vested rights of water mills, and the
defective preservation of watery game, especially
with regard to their breeding seasons. A not
too tyrannical legislative interference might
apply the remedy to both evils.

A new fish once naturalised in any locality
can be soon passed on, from pond to pond and
from river to river, throughout the land. In
France, a good beginning has been made by
MM. Coste and Millet, who have gifted their
country with the Umber-chevalier and other
salmonidae, the issue of eggs from the Lake of
Geneva and other parts of Europe; from the
Rhine, for instance, and the Danube. The name
is explained by Izaak Walton, who saith, " The
French which call chub un villain (a low bred
peasant), call the umber of the Lake Leman
un umble chevalier (a lowly, or polite, and well
bred knight)." From the waters of the Spree
(Prussia; a tributary of the Oder), M.
Valenciennes has directly introduced the pike-perch,
Perca lucioperca, the Cyprinus jeses, the German
eel pout, and the great Silurus glanis, which
attains considerable weights by swallowing
shoals of worthless roach and bream, and so
converting them into savoury food.

These intra-European attempts have for their
appropriate sequel the transport hither, by sea,
of African and Asiatic fish. The goldfish came
from an equally great distance. The carp, already
half cosmopolite, has recently been transported
with success to divers places, notably to the Cape
of Good Hope, in company with tench, by the
English, and to Martinique by the French.

The English society is now in want of a good
new pond fish. The first favourite started was
the lucioperca; but Dr. Günther, of the British
Museum, a gentleman whose extensive
knowledge of fish has obtained for him a European
fame, gave his verdict against the pike-perch,
highly recommending instead the Silurus glanis
and the gourami.

The crime imputed to the poor lucioperca
raises a smile: he is too voracious in his habits,
and might prove detrimental to our waters.
But are our waters the worse for the presence
of the voracious perch and the still more
voracious pike? It has been calculated that it takes
more than five and twenty pounds' consumption
of other fish to produce a perch of two pounds
weight, and that a pike, to add two pounds to
his weight, must eat sixty pounds of roach and
bream, with a few of his own grandchildren by
way of dessert. Notwithstanding which, the
Scotch lochs, in which there are pike, produce
finer and better trout than those where there
are no pike. Is the innocence of the Silurus his