280 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



attempts made for the acclimation of fish and mollusks, there was in 

 fact no urgent necessity for it. Before the water-courses of France 

 were monoplized by commerce, they were filled with fish, and it is not 

 a great while since, in certain localities of Great Britain, servants, as 

 well as the Scotch peasants, were not content if they were obliged to 

 eat salmon more than three times a week. 



The increase of crops, through a better knowledge of agriculture, the 

 raising and improvement of various breeds of cattle, &c, naturally 

 occupied the public mind, as a means of increasing alimentary resources, 

 mucli more than enterprises which at best were considered very pre- 

 carious. In our day it is very different. The rivers and streams, through 

 a deplorable mismanagement, yield only insignificant products. The 

 beds of oysters and edible mollusks are becoming day by day less 

 productive, and it is absolately necessary to have recourse to the fruit- 

 ful sciences of pisciculture and ostriculture to retrieve our losses. 



On the other hand, at no period have circumstances been more favor- 

 able for the ultimate success of the projects for acclimation. The trans- 

 atlantic and other steamers have opened communication with the most 

 distant countries, while the completeness of their construction and their 

 rapidity of passage are about as perfect as we may ever expect to secure.* 



Our means of transportation are now of the first order, without taking 

 into account the vessels of the imperial navy, which would assist in this 

 ■work of public utility, and might, in certain cases, be intrusted with 

 particular installments, incompatible with the service of commercial 

 steamers. 



It ought not to be forgotten that fish and mollusks possess great ad- 

 vantages over other animals, in the rapidity with which they multiply 

 when they are acclimated, and in the less expense of their introduction. 

 Of all the animals subservient to the use of man, they alone live in an 

 element in which they can provide nourishment for themselves. They 

 therefore make no demands upon our resources, which is not the case 

 with other kinds of game. With foreign quadrupeds years must elapse 

 before they can increase greatly in number, wjthout taking into account 

 the diseases which may attack them. How many disappointments has 

 the Society for Acclimation experienced in their attempts with the llama 

 and alpaca! Birds are somewhat more satisfactory, but their repro- 

 duction is also very slow; while fish and mollusks, as soon as they become 

 accustomed to the character of our waters, will increase in a few years 

 to millions. The astonishing reproductive power of the oyster and the 

 mussel is well known. Naturalists have numbered the eggs of the pike 

 by the hundred thousand ; of the carp and the mackerel by the half 

 million ; of the plaice by six millions, which satisfactorily accounts for 



* To speak only of France : Marseilles, besides a line from the Mediterranean, has 

 recently established one from the extreme east. Bordeaux Las one from Brazil and 

 La Plata; Saint Nazaire one from the Antilles and the Gulf of Mexico; and certainly 

 before the middle of next year Havre will inaugurate a line from the United States. 



