X INTRODUCTION. 



But zoology has not been behindhand in satisfying 

 the requirements of our age. Recent experiments 

 on artificial fecundation have drawn attention to long 

 forgotten facts and have shown that the waters may 

 yield as rich a harvest as the land. Notwithstanding 

 some of those failures which are inseparably associated 

 with first attempts, the future success of pisciculture 

 as an industrial art is established beyond all question; 

 and here we do not simply allude to the propagation 

 of fish, but to that of all the aquatic animals which 

 are useful to man. Without going beyond France, 

 we shall find many results in proof of this success. 

 Thus, for instance, M. Coste has acclimatised river 

 fish in a pond at the College de France. MM. 

 Gehin and Remy have re-stocked several rivers from 

 which the fish had long disappeared. M. Millet has 

 this year thrown into the Levriere more than two 

 thousand trout of a year's growth, weighing collec- 

 tively nearly 450 pounds, and all of them the produce 

 of one well managed fish-preserve. The artificial 

 rearing of leeches at Bordeaux has for years been a 

 source of wealth to the proprietors ; and owing to the 

 exertions of these and other enterprising men 

 France will soon cease to be dependent on foreigners 

 for these useful Annelids. The town of La Rochelle 

 possesses reservoirs for the breeding of shrimps and 

 oysters, where the former are sheltered from the mud 

 which would destroy them, and where the latter ac- 

 quire from their first appearance the green colour which 



