BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 265 



too yoimg for this purpose. It requires a larger size — four to six year old 

 oues, of 4 iuches to 5 iuehes iu length. I kept iu my ponds as breeders 

 a large size, 5 iuches to G inches long and 1 inch thick (after feeding). 

 They call them in Austria, Germany, "mother-leeches; " in France, sang- 

 sue- V aches. 



On this occasion I believe it my duty to call your attention to the 

 special breeding of another animal, whicli is extensively carried on in 

 Italy, Spain, France, Austria, and South Germany, namely, that of i7e??',r 

 pomatia. This breeding is as yet quite unknown in America, although 

 large quantities of Rclix aspersa are brought to Xew York from private 

 establishments each winter. 



How extensively the breeding of helices is carried on in Southern 

 Europe, France, Austria, Italy, and South Germany (not at all in Cen- 

 tral and Xorthern Germany), you may gather from the circumstance that 

 Marseilles ships more than 10,000 to 15,000 hundredweight for Paris 

 and London ; Genoa the same quantity. 



Austria breeds a great many ; Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden, too, 

 for the Vienna, Munich, Swiss, and Paris markets. 



When a young boy I collected them by the thousand in the valleys 

 and little hills of the Black Forest Mountains and in the sunny meadows 

 of the Up])er Ehiue, where I found many other kinds of Helix. 



I myself raised some of them years after, by the thousand, in my own 

 business, and these were the Helix pomatia out of the vineyards, Helix 

 rhodostoma from France and Italy; H. aspersa (France) and H. rennicu- 

 laris. 



Not much room is needed to keep about 1,000 or 2,000 living iu, and, 

 for breeding purposes, a box, 20 feet by 5 feet by 2 feet in depth, sunk 

 into the ground and covered with a wire screen frame, will answer to 

 raise about 40,000 to 50,000, with a few square yards of ground to plant 

 the food for them. 



Washington, D. ©., February 9, 1882. 



FISHER V IVEWS FRO.V Or.OL'CESTER, iTIAS$IACHi:SETTS. 



By S. J. MARTIN. 



TFrom a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.") • 



The weather during the last month has been very bad for all kinds of 

 fishing. When there is a chance they get some fish in nets. When nets 

 have been down two or three days with fish in them, most of the fish 

 are spoiled. The nets get badly torn ; they could do better with them 

 than with trawls, however, if they had fine weather. The schooner 

 ISTorthern Eagle arrived yesterday; she had been trawling down at Boone 

 Island. When there was a chance to set, they would get 2,000 i)ounds 

 of fish with 9,000 hooks. The average a night with 24 nets last week 

 was 2,500 pounds. The nets would do better than that. We had suck 



