28 REV. MOSES HARVEY ON 



near the surface, and countless myriads of them are thrown ashore by winds and currents, 

 or carried out to sea where the conditions are far less lavourable for either eggs or young 

 fry, than in sheltered areas inshore. Meantime, fishes and sea-birds are devouring the 

 eggs by millions, for to these enemies they are delicious morsels. When the young- burst 

 from the eggs, their movements are impeded for the first ten days by the yolk-sack which 

 they carry ; so that they cannot escape from their enemies, and the mortality among these 

 handicapped water-babies is inconceivable. Surrounded as they are by hungry foes, 

 " the slaughter of the innocents " goes on incessantly. 



The consequence is that notwithstanding the fecundity of the cod, its actual yield 

 of mature fish is small. Only a small number of all that are cast into the sea survive to 

 become full-grown codfish. It has been estimated by competent judges, that out of a 

 million eggs only one mature cod will be produced. 



It is not surprising then to find that when to this natural waste, man's destructive 

 enginery is added, and vast numbers of the young are captured before they have reached 

 the period of reproduction, as well as of the parent fish, even an abundant cod-fishery 

 may begin to decline, and finally be ruined. This has actually occurred on the coasts of 

 New England, and in many other countries. Man's destructive agencies turn nature's 

 delicate balance, and decline and extinction follow. 



Now here it is where the artificial process shows its value. Every sound egg taken 

 from the fish in the hatcheries, is fertilized by bringing it into contact with the milt, and 

 from fifty to eighty or ninety per cent of the ova are hatched. The young are cared for 

 and protected in their early feeble stage, and placed in the waters when able to take care 

 of themselves ; and thus their chances of survival are immensly increased. The cod being 

 a local fish, the stock can thus be increased in any given area, and exhausted waters can 

 be restored to former abundance. 



If we take the herring, the mackerel, or the various species of flat fishes, we find the 

 destruction of life among these is not less than among the cod tribes. The survival of one 

 life-germ, out of a quarter or half a million of those produced, so that it reaches the stage 

 of maturity, is found to be the average in many species of the more prolific fish. If this 

 were not the case, the waters of the ocean would have been long since over-populated, 

 and life rendered impossible. Even in the case of the salmon, " the monarch of the brook," 

 it has been computed by a high authority that the yearly yield of the largest salmon- 

 producing river in the United Kingdom is about equal to the produce of one female fish, 

 of from 15 lbs. to 20 lbs. in weight, the produce of all the rest being lost or wasted. 

 Sometimes an ill-timed freshet will destroy many millions of eggs, by tearing them from 

 the gravel and laying them bare to a whole host of enemies. 



It becomes apparent therefore that the argument against the artificial propagation of 

 the valuable sea-fishes, on the ground of their superabundant fecundity, has no sub- 

 stantial foundation. 



The cod-fisheries of Newfoundland furnish a striking illustration of the foregoing- 

 views in regard to the possibility of exhausting waters in which the fish-life was once 

 superabundant. For three centuries and a half, the famoixs banks and the waters around 

 the shores of the Island have been fished, mainly, but by no means exclusively, for cod. 

 In regard to the Great Banks, those best qualified to judge are of opinion that the supply 

 of codfish there is far from being so abundant as formerly, and that the decline, though 



