470 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



there, arid the young', which are soon liatched, are a source of consider- 

 able profit to the riparian proprietors. The Jesuit father John Baptiste 

 Duhalde, is the first French author who lias shown* the manner in which 

 this traffic is effected. We give his account, which most historians have 

 copied with alterations: "In the great river \ang-tse-kiang, not far 

 from the city Kieon-kingfoii, in the province of Kiang-si, at certain 

 times of the year, are assembled a prodigious number of boats for the 

 l)urchase there of the eggs of fish. Toward 'the month of May, tlie 

 country-people bar the river in various places with mats and hurdles 

 for a length of about nine or ten leagues, leaving only sufficient space 

 for the passage of the boats; the eggs of the fisli are stopped by tliese 

 hurdles. Thej' can distinguish them by the eye, where other persons 

 see nothing in the water; they draw out this water mixed with eggs, 

 aud fill several vases with it for sale, which causes, at this season, num- 

 bers of merchants to come with their boats to buy it, and transport it 

 into different provinces, taking care to agitate it from time to time. 

 They succeed one another iu this operation, The water is sold iu meas- 

 ures to all those who have fi.shpreserves and domestic ponds. After 

 some days there are seen iu the impregnated water, as it were, little 

 heaps of fishes' eggs, without its being yet possible to distinguish the 

 species. It is only with time that this appears. The profit is often a 

 hundred fold more than the outlay, as the people live iu great part 

 upon fish." To these very simple but successful means of replenishing 

 their ponds, tlie Chinese are said to have joined others which travelers 

 have only very imperfectly indicated ; tliey assert that when the young- 

 fish begins to eat, they give liim marsh lentils mixed with yellow of 

 eggs. 



The Eomans had uearly similar customs at a very early epoch. "The 

 descendants of Romulus and Remus," says Columella,! "rustics as they 

 were, had much at heart the procuring ui)()u their farms a sort of abun- 

 dance in every thing like that which reigns among the inhabitants of 

 the city; thus they were not satisfied with stocking with fish the ponds 

 which they had constructed for this purpose, but carried their foresight 

 to the point of filling lakes formed by nature with the spawn of fish 

 which they threw into them. In this way the lakes Velinus and Saba- 

 tiuus, as well as the Vulsmensis and Ciiniuus, have, in the end, abun- 

 dantly furnished, not ouly cat-fish and gold fish, but, moreover, all other 

 sorts of fish which are able to live in fresh water." Tliese practices were 

 early abandoned, and it is a matter of surprise, when we consider the 

 strange infatuation of Avhich fish became the object in ancient Italy 

 during the following centuries, that no measures were then taken to 

 insure their reproduction and free development. It is well known that 

 the ancients had a remarkable predilection for this species of food. The 

 principal luxury of the Roman banquets consisted of fish, and the poets 



*Historj'^ of the Chinese Empire, vol. i, p. 35, 1735 

 t De Re Rustica, book viii, section 16. 



