472 KEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



treatise does not appear to us to have rendered any more service to pis- 

 ciculture thau that of Florentinus iu the third century, at least as far 

 as we can judge of the latter by the extracts which Cassianus Bassus 

 has preserved for us. It appears, nevertheless, that toward the end of 

 the middle ages new methods were sought for, which might serve to in- 

 crease the production of fish ; a monk of the abbey of Reome, near 

 Montbara, named Dom Pinchon, conceived the idea of artificially fecun- 

 dating the eggs of trout by pressing out in turn the products of a male 

 and female of this species into water, which he afterward agitated with 

 his finger. After this operation, he placed the eggs in a wooden box 

 having a layer of fine sand on the bottom, and a willow grating above 

 and at the two ends. The apparatus remained plunged, up to the mo- 

 ment of hatching, in water flowing with a gentle stream. This process 

 is described iu a manuscript dated 1420, and belonging to the Baron of 

 Montgaudry, grand-nephew of our celebrated Buffon. It has never 

 been published, and had remained secret till a recent time.* Dom Pin- 

 chon is then, iu all probability, the first inventor of artificial fecunda- 

 tion; but his experiments must be looked upon as not having occurred, 

 since they were not made public. They have, of course, had no in iueuce 

 on the progress of' pisciculture, and are only interesting in a historical 

 point of view. 



The fishery of Commachio on the Adriatic, of which the origin is 

 probably very ancient, presents some natural features, which may, per- 

 haps, be imitated with advantage on other parts of the Mediterranean 

 shore. Already described at length by Bonaveri, then by Spallanzani, 

 this lagoon still merits that we should say some words with regard to 

 it. It is, perhaps, one hundred and thirty miles in circumference, 

 according to Spallanzani, and is divided into forty basins, surrounded 

 with dikes, and all in communication with the sea. Eels abound there 

 to such an extent that the inhabitants sell them through all Italy. Dur- 

 ing the months of February, March, and April, they leave the gates 

 open and all the passages free; the young eels enter of their own accord, 

 and the more abundantly in proportion as the weather is stormy. This 

 they call the " mounting." Once in the basins, the fishes find nourish- 

 ment so abundant and so well suited to their wants that they do not 

 attempt to leave until full grown ; that is, after about five or six years. 

 The eels emigrate, and are taken in the greatest number during the 

 mouths of October, November, and December, For this purpose the 

 fishermen open at the bottom of the basins little passages bordered with 

 reeds, which the eels follow from choice, and are conducted into a sort 

 of narrow chamber, where they accumulate without being able to get out- 

 On the average, the crop amounts annually to a million of kilogrammes, 

 (2,204,737 pounds,) and M, Corte informs us that it produces, according 



*M. De Moutgaudiy exx:)lahied the liatching-bos of Dom Pinchon at one of the last 

 sessions of tke Zoological Society of Acclimation, and was kind enough to inform us 

 also of the manner in which the monk of R6ome effected the fecundation of the eggs. 



