FISH 



FISH CULTURE 



they are very difficult to see when 

 lying on the bottom. Many species, 

 especially in the tropics, are gor- 

 geously coloured and variegated to 

 match the seaweeds and corals. 



In the matter of diet fishes vary 

 greatly, and almost everything, 

 both animal and vegetable, that 

 lives in the water is preyed upon by 

 one species or another. Small crus- 

 taceans and molluscs form the most 

 important item in the food of most 

 fishes ; but many prey on smaller 

 fish, and others browse on the aqua- 

 tic vegetation. Some swallow mud 

 and extract nutriment from it. As 

 a rule, the appetite of fishes is large, 

 and some species have such expan- 

 sive powers that they will even 

 swallow other fish larger than 

 themselves. Nearly all fish are 

 edible, though many are coarse and 

 indigestible and a few appear to be 

 actually poisonous. But the poor 

 reputation of certain species is 

 simply due to unskilful and unsuit- 

 able cooking. Fresh -water fishes, 

 with the exception of salmon and 

 trout, are as a rule of muddy or in- 

 sipid flavour and contrast poorly 

 with the marine fishes. 



Fishes are usually divided into 

 four sub-classes : Elasmobranchii 

 or cartilaginous fishes, which are 

 now all extinct with the exception 

 of the sharks and the rays ; Holo- 

 cephali or chimaeroids, of which 

 only three genera now exist and are 

 of very eccentric appearance ; Dip- 

 noi or lung fishes, which can 

 breathe air and are now all extinct, 

 with the exception of three species ; 

 and Teleostomi or end-mouthed 

 fishes, which include all the other 

 fishes. See Animal ; Fisheries ; 

 Zoology. 



W. J. Wintle, F.Z.S. 



Bibliography. Fishes, Living and 

 Fossil, Bashford Dean, 1895 ; The 

 Study of Fishes, A. Gunther, 1880 ; 

 Marvels of Fish Life as revealed by 

 the Camera, F. Ward, 1911. 



Fish, HAMmroN (1808-93). 

 American statesman. Born Aug. 3, 

 1808, in New York, he became a 

 barrister in 1830. In 1842, as a 

 Whig, he was returned to Congress, 

 and in 1848 he became governor of 

 New York State. In 1851 he was 

 elected senator. After visiting 

 Europe, he took a prominent 

 part in the election of Lincoln. 

 Organizing many schemes for the 

 assistance of troops during the 

 Civil War, Fish was also largely re- 

 sponsible for relief measures for the 

 prisoners. From 1869-77 he was a 

 secretary of state under Grant. One 

 of the commissioners for the treaty 

 of Washington, he was identified 

 with many negotiations which im- 

 proved the relations between Great 

 Britain and the U.S.A. He died 

 Sept. 7, 1893. His son, Hamilton 



Fish, was assistant treasurer of the 

 U.S.A., 1903-8, and a member of 

 Congress, 1909-11. * 



Fish, STTJYVESANT (b. 1851). 

 American railroad official. Born at 

 New York, June 24, 1851, the son 

 of Hamilton 

 Fish, he gradu- 

 ated at Colum- 

 bia University. 

 He became a 

 clerk in the 

 Illinois Central 

 Ely., of which 

 he was made 

 director five 

 years later, and 



Stuyyesant Fish, 

 American railroad 



The culture of coarse fish is com- 

 paratively simple. It is merely 

 necessary to place the ova or young 

 fish in the pond or lake and leave 

 them to increase and multiply 

 naturally. In a pond which is 

 supplied with fresh water from 

 springs or a brook, perch, tench, 

 roach, bream, barbel, and pike will 

 flourish. For a stagnant pond, 

 carp, German carp, and eels are the 

 only fish suitable. From the begin- 

 ning of the food shortage caused by 

 the Great War, the British govern- 

 ment did all in its power to stimu- 

 late fresh -water culture in Britain, 

 especially that of eels. The fisheries 

 department supply elvers, that 

 is young eels, at a moderate price 

 to all individuals who desire to 

 stock ponds. 



The fish hatchery for salmon and 

 trout was established in 1853 at 

 Stormontfield, near Perth, on the 

 Tay. It consisted of a series of 

 open-air breeding boxes capable of 

 containing half a million ova. A 

 number of fish hatcheries were after- 

 wards formed in different parts of 

 the kingdom, in which are reared 

 salmon, brown trout, Loch Leven 

 and rainbow trout. These are 

 sent to all parts of the world. 

 Spawning and Hatching 



The spawning fish are netted 

 when on the spawning beds. By 

 gentle pressure the eggs are re- 

 moved from the female and are 

 then fertilised with the milt of the 

 male. The fecund eggs are care- 

 fully conveyed to the hatchery, and 

 placed in shallow trays or boxes 

 through which flows a gentle 

 current of pure water. When 

 hatched, the small fish are kept 

 in the boxes until the yelk sac is 

 absorbed and are then turned out 

 into ponds, or into the open river 

 itself. In pure and scrupulously 

 clean water the proportion of ova 

 safely hatched is as high as 95 p.c. 

 In the U.S.A. the government has 

 established salmon hatcheries on a 

 large scale on the Pacific Coast 

 and at present something like 

 300,000,000 young salmon are 

 liberated every year. 



The stock of salmon in a river 

 can be largely increased by im- 

 proving the means of access to the 

 upper water by constructing sal- 

 mon ladders at spots where there 

 are falls, to enable the fish to reach 

 their spawning grounds more easily. 

 By an outlay of 2,000 the duke of 

 Sutherland doubled the fishing 

 value of the Helmsdale river. 

 The question of the close time for 

 nets is also important as regards 

 the increase of salmon. The stock of 

 fish in a trout stream and the size of 

 the trout can be largely increased 

 by deepening the pools by means of 

 rich soil for gardening purposes, f trough stone dams. These dams, 



was president 

 from!887-1906. 



From 1883-1906 he was trustee 

 of the Montreal Life Insurance Co. 

 of New York. He was vice-presi- 

 dent and director of the National 

 Park Bank, and from 1904-6 presi- 

 dent of the American Railway 

 Association. 



Fish Culture. Art or industry 

 of artificially increasing stocks of 

 food fish, both fresh -water and 

 marine. Ponds or stews for fresh- 

 water fish have been common from 

 time immemorial. The Chinese 

 have cultivated fish for thousands 

 of years and still lead the world in 

 the amount of fresh- water fish bred 

 for food. At the beginning of the 

 Christian era every wealthy Roman 

 had his piscinae or fish ponds. 



So far back as the Saxon epoch 

 large landowners had stews for 

 carp, pike, perch, bream, eels, etc. 

 In Domesday Book ponds are men- 

 tioned which were valued at five to 

 twelve shillings yearly, represent- 

 ing at least twelve times the value 

 of a similar area of agricultural 

 land at that date. In 1275 Parlia- 

 ment passed a stringent Act pun- 

 ishing poaching and injury to 

 ponds, and somewhat later the 52 

 Plowden Ponds of Ashton, North- 

 amptonshire were said to be capable 

 of producing a ton of fish weekly. 



French and German Methods 

 On the Continent fish culture 

 never fell into disuse as it did in 

 Britain. France possesses fresh 

 waters devoted to fish farming, of a 

 total area of nearly 500,000 acres, 

 while in Germany every town or 

 village where running water is 

 obtainable has its fish ponds or 

 stews. In Germany, as a rule, three 

 or more ponds are constructed in 

 line along the course of a brook, 

 and while two are filled with water 

 holding fish, the remainder are 

 drained and the beds cultivated. 

 This method pays doubly in that 

 the cultivated ponds, when refilled, 

 supply a stock of insect food for the 

 fish, while the drained ponds make 



