14 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



ice on the Lower Loire. But the constant features of the three past win- 

 ters have been the relatively small rainfall, the high barometer, and, for 

 the first two years, the absence of the sardine on the coast during the 

 following summer. 



Mr. Blavier, president of the Main-et-Loire Industrial Society, has 

 recently read a paper before the Academy of Sciences, in which he ac- 

 counts for these facts by the alleged displacement of the Gulf Stream, 

 one branch of which ordinarily leaves the coast of the Bay of Biscay, 

 rendering the climate very much warmer than that of corresponding lat- 

 itudes in North America. The sardine always follows this warm cur- 

 rent, and has now accompanied it in the new path which it has made for 

 itself in the ocean. According to Mr. Blavier, the fishermen have no 

 reason to anticipate a good catch until the breaking up of those great 

 ice masses in Baffin's Bay which, it is believed, have for several years 

 obstructed the flow of that cold arctic current by contact with which off 

 the Banks of Newfoundland the Gulf Stream has hitherto been deflected 

 toward Europe. 



If this view be correct, the coming season will be as unproductive as 

 those which have preceded. In that case the misfortune of the Yendean 

 and Breton fishermen, however regretable in itself, cannot fail to en- 

 courage the " sardine" industry which has already acquired so consid- 

 erable a development in the United States. 



United States Commercial Agency, 



Nantes, April 3, 1882. 



GROWTH OF GERMAN CARP SE1VT TO SAVOY, TEXAS, BY THE 

 UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



By SAMUEL, JOHNSON. 



(Letter to Prof. S. F. Baird.) 



My carp which you sent me the 10th day of January last are doing 

 well. Some of them are eight inches long. The shorest one that I re- 

 ceived was one and a half inches long then and is four inches long to-day. 

 They grow like China pigs, when fed with plenty of butter-milk. I 

 feed them on the scraps from the table. They love good biscuit the 

 best. They eat meat, bread, salad, or worms, and everything I give 

 them. They are perfectly gentle and come at the rattle of a sheep's 

 bell to be fed. 1 Iced thein as I would chickens, and intend to feed them 

 every day. I have plenty of water for thousands of them. I would 

 not take one hundred dollars for what you sent me. 1 can make them 

 weigh five or six pounds this summer by feeding them well. 



Savoy, Tex., April 21, 1882. 



