290 ro:man and modern pisciculture 



The erroneous view of those of Badham's school needs 

 correction. By tracing historically the various and not 

 generally known discoveries which led to our modern practice 

 of fish-breeding I hope to prove that the process of the Romans 

 differed from ours. For this reason I subjoin a short restcmi 

 showing why and how Pisciculture as we term it and know it 

 came about, i 



The same demand for fish, the same dearth of fish, which 

 compelled the enactment in mediaeval Europe of stringent 

 laws protecting fish, spawn, and fry, caused in ancient China 

 and Imperial Rome the breeding of fish in lakes and vivaria 

 by non-natural methods, and in Europe from the fourteenth 

 to the nineteenth century the quest of an unnatural or artificial 

 method. 



Laws aimed at repairing the dearth of fish — a very serious 

 economic matter when all Europe observed frequent fast 

 days — caused by destruction of spawn and of fish during the 

 breeding seasons by human and animal agencies, were made 

 in England as early as the reign of our Ethelred II., who in 

 996 forbade the sale of any young fish. 2 Malcolm 11. of 

 Scotland fixed the times and conditions under which salmon 

 fishing was permitted. Under Robert I. the willow of the 

 bow-nets had to be two inches apart, so as to allow a passage 

 for the grilse. In 141 1 Robert III. punished with death any- 

 one taking a salmon in the close season. The Kings of France 

 were not idle. IMany ordinances fix the meshes of the nets 

 and the length of saleable fish. 



The first known attempts at fish-breeding were made by 

 the Chinese and Romans. M. Haime asserts that " we have no 

 positive data as to the epoch in which the Chinese began their 

 experiments, although everything shows that they reach back 

 to the most remote antiquity." The address of Mr. Wei-Ching 



1 Cf. an article in the Revue des deux Mondes, for June, 1854, by M. Jules 

 Haime. 



» According to Magna Carta, c. 33, " all kydells [dams or weirs] for the 

 future shall be removed altogether from the Thames and the Medway, and 

 throughout all England, except on the sea-shore." 



It was for over 500 years held that this was a measure intended to safe- 

 guard the passage of fish, but W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (Glasgow, 

 1914,) pp. 303 ff., 343 ft., has shown that it aimed at removing hindrances to 

 navigation, not to ascending fish. 



