14C Transactions. 



ever in\t into a river had been about five thousand, which would 

 be really nothing, put into the Nith or the Tweed. So we had 

 never really tried the fish in rivers. But in ponds and lakes 

 where he could be confined he had done remarkably well, and was 

 really a great acquisition to our waters. He was lately at a place 

 M'here a number of these fish had been turned in, and found them 

 spawning in the race waters at the head of the pond. They had 

 grown to a weight of 2 lbs. or .3 lbs., and were providing not only 

 excellent sport but occasionally pleasant change of diet to the 

 proprietor. He had also Loch Leven trout, which he could take 

 at any time. To have fish thus at command was a very desirable 

 thing, and he knew none which would thrive better in small space 

 than the American trout. He had reared tliem in small tanks up 

 to a weight of 4 lbs. or 5 lbs. He found that they bore a higher 

 temperature than our trout ; and they had also been acclimatised 

 to greater extremities of tempei'ature. 



He believed the time would come, before very long, when every 

 country house almost would have its fish pond, and the proprietoi- 

 would be able to send out and have a few fish taken from it, just 

 as he sent now to his poultry-yard and had fowls or ducks killed 

 for dinner. For years all the energies offish culturists had been 

 devoted to the culture of trout and char, with an occasional 

 attempt at the culture of salmon and sea trout, which had been 

 greatly retarded by the withholding of proper facilities. But now 

 the cultivation of coarse fish was being gone into a good deal. 

 One advantage of this would be that this class of fish lived upon a 

 vegetable diet much more than the salmonidaj. These warm water 

 fish, or fish like the carp, tench, and others, did very well indeed, 

 under cultivation. Some objections had been taken to their 

 flavour, and objections which, he believed, had a good deal of 

 weight; but these were entirely got over by simply transfei ring 

 the fish before they were eaten to stews or tanks supplied witli 

 pure water. Keeping the fish there and feeding them for some 

 time, they entirely lost the flavour of weeds and mud, and came 

 out perfectly eatable. This was very much more widely known on 

 the continent than here. If it were more widely known in this 

 country, we might utilise many fish which at present people 

 absolutely refused to eat. Mr Armistead next explained a method 

 which he followed of rearing little shell fish, crustaceans, and tad- 

 poles, to supply food for the fish in the ponds, which was done in 

 a semi-natux'al way over sluices from ponds at a higher level. Fish 



