250 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



promoting the prosperity of the salmon-fishings. 1 Since 

 that date the hatching of freshwater fishes has been 

 extensively carried out in the United States, Canada, 

 France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, 

 Greece, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and else- 

 where, while in our own country it has also been largely 

 developed by private enterprise, such establishments as 

 those of Sir J. G. Maitland, at Howieton, being both exten- 

 sive and successful. The British Government, however, 

 unlike those of the United States and Canada, has not 

 hitherto interfered with the subject, but has left it entirely 

 in private hands. By means of this artificial method, 

 streams, lakes, and ponds, in which the fish-supplies had 

 either been reduced or removed, were re-stocked, and new 

 forms introduced from distant waters. 



While, therefore, the artificial hatching of freshwater 

 fishes has thus been widely and successfully practised, it is 

 otherwise with those inhabiting the sea. It is necessary, 

 however, here briefly to review the situation in our country, 

 in order to grasp the bearings of this important question. 



Previous to 1883, our knowledge of the life-histories of 

 the marine food-fishes was meagre. Few, or none, of our 

 scientific men had studied their oviposition and develop- 

 ment, so that such information had to be obtained by special 

 inquiry for the Royal Commission then sitting (1883) under 

 Lord Dalhousie. Fostered by the able and sympathetic 

 •chairman, and the other members of that commission, 

 scientific knowledge of the fisheries generally, and of the 

 development and life-histories of the marine food -fishes in 

 particular, has made great progress ; so that at the recent 

 Committee on Fisheries of the House of Commons, under 

 Lord Tweedmouth (an energetic member of the commission 

 of 1883-84), the conditions were very different. This ac- 

 curate knowledge of the subject has been obtained at the 

 St. Andrews Marine Laboratory (under the Fishery Board 

 for Scotland), the oldest in Britain ; at the Granton Labora- 



1 Those familiar with this interesting spot will almost regret the trans- 

 ference of the main-hatching operations to Dupplin. The fry are now 

 placed in the river at an early stage, and storage-ponds are unnecessary. 



