^ 



THE HISTORY OF FISH-CULTURE. 479 



fectf^d, and has finally come to constitute an actual branch of indnsti-j. 

 All the progress which has been made \Yithin six years in this depart- 

 ment of the science is the work of French inquirers. 



The first, M. de Quatrefages,* was led by purely scientific researches 

 to occupy himself with the multiplication of fish. This zoologist, con- 

 vinced that artificial fecundation would do away with the various causes 

 \\hich prevent the development of the eggs, advised the employment of 

 the hatching-box of Goldstein (or rather of Jacobi) for fish of running 

 water. For those of ponds or lakes he recommended de[>ositing the 

 fecundated egg on a layer of aquatic plants in a spot where the water 

 should be tranquil and shallow, and protecting them by latticework 

 against the attacks of their enemies. He showed how the employment 

 of the process discovered by Jacobi would facilitate the domesticating 

 of foreign fish in our waters. Finally, he pointed out the possibility of 

 rendering annual the triennial and irregular product of the ponds by 

 dividing them into three or four unequal compartments. In the small- 

 est the eggs might be hsitched and the fry raised. Each year the fish 

 might be driven from one compartment to another, and the last basin 

 might be fished every year. 



The memoir of M. de Quatrefages made a good deal of noise, because 

 it met one of the wants of rural economy, and gave a glimpse of a quite 

 new prosperity for the industry' of ponds and water-courses. Drawing 

 from oblivion the results obtained in Germany during the last century, 

 it recalled the attention of naturalists and husbandmen to a question too 

 long neglected, and of which it would be now superfluous to dwell upon 

 the importance. The author was, doubtless, far from thinking that the 

 conclusions to which he had brought his studies would be almost imme- 

 diately justified and confirmed by the experiments taken some years 

 before, but which had not; yet been made public. However, in the first 

 days of March, 1849, the Academy of Sciences learned by a letter of Dr. 

 Haxo,t secretary of the Society of Emulation of the Vosges, that this 

 society had, in the year 1844, given a premium to two fishermen of La 

 Bresse, MM. Remy and Gehiu, for having fecundated aud artificially 

 hatched some eggs of trout. M. Haxo added that Remy and Gehin then 

 l)ossessed a inece of water containing five or six thousand trout, of one 

 to three years old, all raised by this process. It is impossible not to 

 admire the sagacity aud persev.erance of these fishermen, who, quite 

 unlettered and ignorant of the progress of the natural sciences, have 

 found the means of themselves, of remedying the decay of their industry, 

 and of giving it a new impetus. Xot only have they repeated, with 

 great pains, the observations and experiments which occupied Jacobi's 

 whole life, but they have gone much farther in the practical application, 

 aud have almost entirely resolved the problem. 



* Coioptcs-rendus of the Academy of Scieuces, vol. xxvii, p. 413, 1848. See also 

 the Revne des Deux Mondes, Jan. 1, 1849. 



t Comptes-rcDdus of the Academy of Sciences, vol. xxviii, ^i. 351, 1849. 



