CORMORANTS— FISH-BREEDING 461 



" Now enter villagers," who as soon as feeding ceases, rush 

 to the bank and by drums, gongs, and every conceivable noise 

 frighten the cormorants. Heavy from over-repletion, they 

 have, before they can fly, to lighten themselves of most of their 

 meal, which in due time provides the peasants' supper ! This 

 method, if it does not appeal to the palate, possesses the merit 

 of semi-poetic and retributive justice. 1 



De Thiersant's assertion that to the Chinese belongs the 

 honour of being the first to invent pisciculture can only be 

 allowed to pass, if the term be restricted to hatching out by 

 natural means, bringing up, and caring for young fish. From 

 this, pisciculture proper differs as chalk from cheese. Originated 

 by Remy in the last century, it consists of artificial fecundation 

 by the extrusion and mixture of the milt of the male and of 

 the eggs of the female, the hatching out of the eggs on specially 

 constructed trays of wire, etc., set in running water, and the 

 nurture of the fry on specially adapted food in carefully prepared 

 and graduated ponds. 



De Thiersant himself, a few pages later, 2 makes the point 

 clear. Chinese fish-breeders do not resort to artificial fecunda- 

 tion, with which they were even in 1870 very faintly acquainted, 

 for several reasons, not least of which was their contention that 

 fish thus produced were predisposed to quick deterioration. ^ 



The Chinese (like the Roman) method of fish-breeding in 

 the eighteenth century,* and till 1872, consisted in gathering 

 from collecting fences constructed for the purpose ^ eggs which 

 had been fertilised naturally. These were carried (sometimes 

 hundreds of miles, for the secret of safe transportation had 

 early been mastered) to ponds or streams for natural, not 

 artificial hatching. The young fry were guarded carefully, 

 and fed most watchfully. 



Gray ^ enumerates some of the many and minute precautions 



1 Blackwood's Magazine, March, 191 7, p. 32. 



- Op. ciL, V. 



^ The ichthyologists divided fresh-water fishes into two kinds — Yeh yii, 

 wild, and Chia yii, tame fish : the former cannot live, much less propagate 

 their species, in waters lacking a stream. 



•• Du Halde, op. cit., vol. I. p. 36 f. 



^ The Yii of a pond, according to the Shan fang ss/i k'ao, was the name of 

 " a fence of bamboo set up in the water, and used for reari)!^^ fish." 



» Op. cit., ch. XXX. 



