472 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



manifest a freedom from disease, such as "fungus" aud kindled ail- 

 ments, that is marvelous. 



Added to this, they are far more rapid growers, attaining four times 

 the size of brook trout in the same time and with equal feed; aud can 

 be kept in temperatures many degrees higher than any of the salmon 

 family with which I have had to do. 



Battle Creek, Mich., September 29, 1883. 



137.— EXCHANGE OF MVK RIABINE SPECIMENS Willi FRANCE. 



By FRED MATIIKIt. 



[From a letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.] 



I have to day received tour living specimens of the loach, Gabitis fos- 

 salts, from Captain Briand, of the steamship Nbrmandie. He brought 

 these from Paris on the last trip. I understand that they were bred in 

 France by the late M. Oharbonnier, from parents brought from Russia. 

 Madam Charbonnier, who seems to share the tastes of her late husband, 

 wishes some of our small sunfish and pond turtles, which I will send 

 her by Captain Briand. 



Cold Spuing Habbob, X. Y., October 2, 1883. 



liJW.— THE SCOTCH HKUKIIVG FISHERIES. 



[From the London Daily Telegraph, August :i0, 1883.] 



In the instructive paper prepared for the fisheries conferences by the 



Duke of Edinburgh, the money value of the fish taken off the coasts 

 of these islands is estimated by his Royal Highness at £7,380,000 

 ($36,900,000). The Scotch herring fisheries alone cured, in 1880, nearly 

 a million and a half barrels of herring, and exported nearly a million. 

 Now, a barrel is calculated to contain 800 or 000 fish, and will sell on in 

 average for 25 shillings. According to this estimate the value of the 

 herring cured in Scotland that year was about £1,842,000. Some 20 

 per cent, of the Scotch herring, however, are sold fresh, and at prices 

 at least equal to that of the cured fish ; so thai the sum total realized 

 by one year's herring fishing in the lochs aud on the coasts of Scotland 

 would fall little short of £2,250,000. As good a tale could lie told, no 

 doubt, for Yarmouth and the other great English fisheries; nor must 

 we lose sight of the fact that while I he herring, in its adull state, is the 

 cheapest and one of the most wholesome luxuries of the poor, that 

 which is supposed to be its tender 1 1\ , known as whitebait, is an esteemed 

 delicacy of tiie rich, and is devoured in quantities that would seem 

 wasteful were it not for the proofs which are from time to time forth- 

 coming of the inexhaustible character of our herring supply. 



