276 THE FRESH-WATEU FISHES OF ET'intPE. 



eight hundred thousand pounds' weif^ht of Sahnon, equal to the weig-ht 

 of eighteen thousand sheep, and of three times the vahie. 



With this enormous amount of excellent food supplied by Nature, it is 

 man'ellous that the fisheries should have been neglected and ruined in so 

 many English rivers. The number of fishes has been diminished by nets 

 at the mouths of streams, which prevent the fishes from ascending to spawn ; 

 and thus proprietors, if we may use the figure, have killed the goose which 

 laid the golden eggs. Moreover, such fishes as escaped the nets and reached 

 the higher parts of the river too often fell victims to the poacher. Besides, 

 the increase of population and of the manufacturing industries have poisoned 

 the rivers in England, so that Salmon avoid them. The last Salmon was 

 killed in the Thames, according to Yarrell, in June, 1883. 



Buckland notices that eighteen out of twenty-five cathedral towns were 

 built upon Salmon rivers, from six of which the fish has been exterminated. 

 These towns, which Salmon know no more, are Canterbury, on the Stour ; 

 London and Oxford, on the Thames; Rochester, on the Medway ; Win- 

 chester, on the Itchen ; and Bath, on the Avon, 



Attempts have been made of late years to esta])lish a race of land-locked 

 Salmon by artificially fecundating the eggs, and breeding Salmon from parents 

 which have never descended to the sea. Earlier experimenters had shown that 

 Salmon can be kept in fresh water for some time : certainly till they are five 

 years old. But the most important experiments have been carried on by 

 Sir J. R. Gibson Maitland, and their history is recorded by Mr, Francis Day. 

 Salmon were hatched in March, 1881 ; at the age of two years and four months 

 most of them were of a golden tint, spotted, and in the banded Pai-r livery ; 

 while others were beautiful silvery Smolts, such as are seen going down to the 

 sea, and still showing the Parr bands in certain lights, A few months later, 

 the fishes began to leap from their ponds, and were found dead, but with the 

 breeding organs well developed; and in November, 1884, one of these fishes, 

 which weighed one pound and a quarter, was found dead, when a hundred 

 eggs were taken from it and milted from a Loch Leven Trout, Eighteen of 

 these hatched, thus demonstrating that a visit to the sea is not necessary 

 to develop the reproductive function. But at the beginning of December the 

 experiment was tried of fertilising the eggs of females bred in the pond with 

 the milt of males raised with them, and considerable numbers of young fishes 

 were hatched. Thus far. Grilse, or fishes with the Grilse livery, have been 

 bred from the eggs of Salmon without making the usual journey to the sea 

 which precedes the development of the Grilse characteristics, and these fishes 

 have proved fertile, so that a second generation is being reared from them 

 under similar land-locked conditions. 



