FIFTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 51 



become interested in the biological aspect if the latter had been 

 presented to them first. With the selection of species for prop- 

 agation and distribution, there naturally followed the investiga- 

 tion as to the habits, habitat, etc., of each selected species ; and 

 one inquiry led to another, for in order to insure success from 

 the business standpoint, it is necessary to pursue as closely as 

 possible the various steps, and follow the various methods and 

 order that nature follows. So a knowledge of the character or 

 peculiarities of the environment or native haunts of the selected 

 species has to be obtained. 



Preceding the distribution and planting of the young fish, 

 occur the inquiry and consideration of the factors or physical 

 character of the region in which it is proposed to make a plant 

 and so on. In this way much special and abstract knowledge is 

 accumulated and brought to public attention, and more general 

 notice ; the laws of life are better understood and the relation of 

 species to species, and of all life to its environment, are made 

 more clearly perceptible and more wndely known. It will be 

 seen by the foregoing that fish propagating operations and enter- 

 prises, both from the scientific and natural history side, as well 

 as from the economic point of view, are incidentally useful as 

 promoters of public education. 



I am sure it will not be an uninteresting digression if we turn 

 for a few moments from the consideration of the distribution of 

 species by natural methods, that is to say by the hand of nature, 

 as well as that intentional and artificial distribution by the hand 

 of man, which is such an important and interesting part of 

 modern fish-producing operations, to take a glance or side view 

 through the collateral vista of unintentional, accidental, or more 

 properly incidental distribution, and see what or where it leads 

 to. 



The transplantation of animal and vegetable species from 

 their native haunts to some other part of the earth, more or less 

 distant from their indigenous habitat, as an incident of traffic or 

 commercial intercourse and enterprise, has many peculiar and 

 striking illustrations. We have a notable example in the geo- 

 graphical distribution of the common rat. With the extension 

 of commercial intercourse and international trade, the brown rat 



