106 DESTEUCTION OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



which was once so abundant in the rivers of Europe and the 

 United States, is now nearly exterminated except in a few streams 

 where it is protected by stringent laws. But the capture and 

 canning of the California or quinnat salmon on the Paciiic coast 

 is now an industry of great importance, large quantities being 

 exported from California, Oregon, and Washington Territory to 

 every part of the world. The number of these iish now taken 

 annually on the Paciiic coast, according to the statistics of 1880, 

 amounts to httle less than 3,000,000, and their multiplication 

 must be enormous to support such a drain without danger of 

 sharing the fate of the Atlantic sahnon. "Wulfsberg, however, 

 affirms that the deep-sea fisheries on the coast of Norway are still 

 as plentiful as ever, and argues that they are practically inex- 

 haustible, because the number of fish destroyed by man forms 

 but an infinitesimal proportion of the increase, and is entirely 

 insignificant in comparison with the consumption by birds and 

 marine animals of prey. Of salt-water fish, only those which 

 resort to the mouths of rivers for spawning have diminished. 

 ■ • Fish are more affected than quadrupeds by shght and even 

 imperceptible differences in their breeding places and feeding 

 ' grounds. Every river, every brook, every lake stamps a special 

 character upon its salmon, its shad, and its trout, which is at once 

 recognized by those who deal in or consume them. No skiU can 

 give the fish fattened by food selected and prepared by man the 

 flavor of those which are nourished at the table of nature, and 

 the trout of the artificial ponds in Germany and Switzerland are 

 60 inferior to the brook-fish of the same species and climate, that 

 it is hard to believe them identical. It is an observation f amihar 

 to every one acquainted with both continents, that the American 

 trout and other fresh-water fishes are superior in sapidity to the 



nually with the drag-net, and not less than twice as many more, not to speak 

 of spawn, are destroyed by the use of this net. 



Between 1861 and 1865 France imported from Norway, for use as bait in 

 the sardine fishery, cod-roes to the value of three million francs. — Cutts, 

 Beport on Commerce in the Products of the Sea, 1872, p. 82. 



The most reckless waste of aquatic life I remember to have seen noticed, if 

 we except the destruction of heiTing and other fish with spawn, is that of the 

 €ggs of the turtle in the Amazon for the sake of the oil extracted from them. 

 Bates estimates the eggs thus annually sacrificed at 48,000,000. — Naturalist on 

 tTie Amaeon, 2d edition, 1864, p. 365. 



