512 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [22] 
spawn of salt-water fish in fresh water, and succeeded in acclimatiz- 
ing them. In the sixteenth century Marshall imported carp into Eng- 
Jand.* 
A hundred years later the gold carp (Cyprinus auralus) was introduced 
into Europe from China, and at the present time is a frequent ornament 
of our ponds and of glass globes in our parlors. ‘Towards the end of the 
last century the celebrated Dr. Franklint gathered fecundated spawn 
of the Norfolk herring on marine plants, and successfully transplanted 
these fish to the inland waters of America, &c., &c. M. de Lacépéde, in 
his Traité des effets de Vart de Vhomme sur la nature des poissons ;t 
and Backwell in his Travels in Tarentaise and in the Edinburgh Review 
of 1822, demonstrated the usefulnesss and possibility of such acclima- 
tizing experiments, and directed special attention to the salmon family, 
which also at the present day forms the principal subject of our experi- 
ments. Itwas reserved for our modern piscicu lturists tomake this ques- 
tion the order of the day, and to hasten its solution by the facility and 
certainty which the artificial methods have brought to the propagation 
of fish. This facility of multiplying rare or foreign species of fish opens 
out a wide field of profitable speculation. No one will deny the great 
benefit which agriculture has derived from the introduction and the 
crossing of foreign breeds of domestic animals, and which horticulture 
has derived from the acclimatization, cultivation, and hybridization of 
rare and exotic fruits and plants. These facts show what we may justly 
expect from pisciculture; and the experiments which have been made of 
late years prove that these expectations have not been disappointed. 
The large quantities of fecundated eggs which have been transported 
in France and in foreign countries by Coste, Fraas, and by the Hiinin- 
gen establishment, and the satisfactory results of all these experiments, 
are aS many guarantees for the practicability of this method. 
CHAPTER Y. 
MEANS USED FOR TRANSPORTING EGGS AND FISH. 
Our knowledge of the methods of preserving and transporting fecun- 
dated eggs of fish is based on observations made in France in connec- 
tion with the practical experiments in artificial propagation. Although 
it has been known for some time that aquatic birds, and particularly 
ducks, often become the propagators of fish, the fecundated spawn of 
which had become attached to their feet, no conclusion had been drawn 
from this circumstance relative to the subject of this chapter, nor to the 
solution of the question how long eggs can remain out of the water with- 
out endangering their ulterior development. 
* LACEPEDE: Cuvres. Paris, Duménil, 1836, ii, 255. 
t VON EHRENKREUTZ: Das Ganze der Angelfischerei. Quedlinburg, 1856, 6th ed. 
tLACEPRDE: Cfuvres, ii, 253. 
