VALUE OF NORWEGIAN LAIvES FOR FISH CULTURE. 5G9 



qaaliiy makes it just as worthy of recommendation to be bred along witli 

 the red char where circumstances permit, since it naturally lays its eggs 

 in the open water, and the fry proceeding therefrom will serve as food 

 for the whole planting of fishes at a time of the year when neither trout 

 or char eggs or young are present; while the artificial hatching which is 

 necessary for the regular stocking, without requiring special apparatus, 

 may take place in May to June in the empty apparatus used for the 

 hatching of trout and char eggs. For the nourishing of the young in 

 their tenderest youth only is required a i)articular apparatus of little 

 extent and expense. It is just as little a fish of prey as the red char, 

 and possesses nearly the same fecundity. 



With these four kinds of fishes the list is complete of the salmonoids, 

 or salmon-like fishes, which ought to be special objects of cultivation as 

 articles of food. There are still a couple small fishes belonging to the 

 same principal division, which also deserve to be taken into considera- 

 tion as objects for cultivation ; but since they are sui)posed to deserve 

 to be considered as a natural food for the larger and more valuable fishes 

 rather than as food for men, for which, however, to some extent they 

 are used in the places where they now occur in any quantity, and since 

 they, as it appears, will thrive and reproduce only in larger lakes with 

 bottoms of a certain quality, I will refer to them under the kinds of 

 fishes that ought to be hatched as food for the larger and more valu- 

 able fishes. Should it happen that by such cultivation they will become 

 . so numerous that they might also be considered as food for jieople, so 

 much the better. 



Of another chief division of fishes, the spiny-finned, which inhabit our 

 fresh waters, I have next cited two kinds to be considered above all 

 others, although it is generally supposed that they cannot be compared 

 with tlie preceding in flavor. About this, opinion may be, and is much 

 di\ided. 



Of these I have placed the Percu {Pcrca fiuviatilis) first, sinee this 

 species is most widely distributed. It is found generally more or less 

 nmnerous in nearly all rivers, brooks, and lakes, even up to the spruce 

 limit. Whether it will live and thrive at greater elevations is, so far as 

 is known, not determined, probably because it is readily eaten by the 

 common people in the mountain districts, but is not regarded particu- 

 larly by the side of the trout, which is more generally distributed there. 

 It bears very different names in the different parts of the country where 

 it occurs : Abor, tryte, skjebbe, &c. It lives and thrives in all kinds of 

 lakes, small and great, with or without constant afflux, and is just 

 adapted, therefore, for cultivation in such lakes in which the previously- 

 mentioned kinds of fishes will not thrive properly. It is decidedly a ra- 

 pacious fish, and it is supposed, therefore, by fish breeders in Southern 

 Eurojie that it ought to be excluded from the lakes in which the salmon- 

 idee are cultivated. Experience in our country seems, at the same time, 

 to show that it cannot be very dangerous to the trout or the red char, 



