58 RET>ORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHEtJtES, [6] 



Ice Hall, where tliere is a specimen, prepared by Mr. Wickersbeiiner. 

 This fish succeeded in crossing the ocean in good condition, but died 

 upon its arrival here. 



The great wealth of fish has by no means induced our American friends 

 to rest contented with sitting down to the rich banquet which nature 

 has provided for them, but they make every effort to give back to the 

 water what they have taken from it. In the first place, they have 

 gotten our carp, in return for the two fish which they have sent ns; and 

 this hardy European mud-fish seems to flourish very well in America. 

 They have also imported the saibling, and, as far as I know, the mdrane. 

 Marine animals have been raised artificially on a very large scale; 

 numerous piscicultural establishments have been founded in various 

 parts of the country; and the practical American pisciculturists, such 

 as Professor Spencer F. Baird, Fred. Mather, Olarke, T. B. Ferguson, 

 Holton, Chase, Pike, C. G. Atkins, M. McDonald, and others, have in- 

 vented a large number of different hatching and other piscicultural 

 apparatus, and have practically tested most of them. The number of 

 such apparatus in the Fishery Exposition is very large, many of them 

 being already theoretically known to us from the descriptions given in 

 the publications of the ''German Fishery Association." But the prac- 

 tical Americans go still further. Each one of their many hatching 

 establishments hatches every year millions of salmon, trout, and other 

 fish eggs. But not satisfied with this, the United States has built a 

 a fish-hatching steamer, the Fish Hawk, which, fitted with all sorts 

 of apparatus, makes long trips along the coast and up the rivers en- 

 deavoring to solve the various piscicultural problems. The exhibition 

 shows us the model of this steamer, as well as a model of its central 

 portion containing the hatching ajjparatus. 



Our limited space unfortunately compels us to close our review; but 

 we cannot leave this subject without having directed the attention of 

 \'i8itors to the exhibition to the apparatus for making deep-sea sound- 

 ings, exhibited by the Coast Survey (of the Treasury Department) ; to 

 the rich literature; to the beautifully executed maps of the I^orth Amer- 

 ican fishing grounds; and finally to a very original i)roduction, viz, five 

 \vater-color paintings, showing the spawning places of the sea-bears on 

 the Pribiloff Islands in Alaska. A full report on the nature and char- 

 acteristics of that out-of-the-way corner of the world was made a few 

 months ago at the session of the Society for Commercial Geography in 

 Berlin, by Mr. l5mil Brass; and Mr. Henry W. Elliott's water-color 

 sketches fully corroborate Mr. Brass's report. The American exhibit 

 also contains the skins of seals, otters, sea-bears, weasels, minks, beav- 

 ers, &c. It is, of course, impossible to give within the limits of a short 

 newspaper article even an outline of all that is contained in this in- 

 teresting exhibit; for we would not attempt to compress into one short 

 article matter sufficient to fill a large volume. 



