76 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
of the question of the management of our salmon 
fisheries. 
The very remarkable achievement of stocking the waters 
of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand with trout and 
salmon could never have been accomplished but for the 
discovery, first, that the eggs of fish could be taken and 
fertilised by artificial manipulation, and, second, that by the 
use of ice their development could be retarded sufficiently 
long to enable them to be carried in safety half round the 
world. It would be a striking, but by no means impossible, 
illustration of the destructive powers of man on the one 
hand, and the reproductive powers of Nature, aided by man’s 
intelligence and constructive arts, on the other, if Great 
Britain, once the home of the finest salmon in the world, with 
her natural supplies poisoned and obstructed out of existence, 
were reduced to the necessity of receiving from the Anti- 
podes, whose sparkling streams Nature forgot to include 
in the realm of the “king of fish,” cargoes of salmon, caught 
weeks and months ago beneath the Southern Cross, but 
preserved fresh and bright by the aid of “refrigerating 
machinery” for consumption at the Englishman’s dinner- 
table. 
We have, on the other hand, within our reach the possi- 
bility of restoring the salmon fisheries of this country to 
such an extent that the very remarkable improvement in 
their productiveness which the last twenty years have 
witnessed shall be entirely eclipsed. But rivers now depo- 
pulated can only be restored by going to the root of the 
evil, and by remedying weirs and pollutions. If we are 
not careful, even streams now fairly productive may share 
the fate of the Thames and the Mersey; and, when 
Macaulay’s New Zealander comes to perch on the broken 
arch of London Bridge, and finds no salmon leaping over 
