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had long been vainly desired, that is to say, the means of 

 artificially fecundating the eggs of trout, and of procuring 

 the exclusion of them. The savans may rise in revolt against 

 the fact, that two simple observers of nature, without any 

 science, without even knowing how to read or write, have 

 found alone what they, the savans, vainly sought for in their 

 ponderous books : but truth will triumph over their ill-will, 

 and it will remain acquired to the history of the natural 

 sciences that our two fishermen are really the inventors of 

 the process now generally adopted of the artificial fecunda- 

 tion of the eggs of fish. 



"What I say to you, sir, of the ill-will of the French 

 savans who have occupied themselves with the subject in 

 question is so true, that not only does M. Milne Edwards, 

 in a report to the Minister of Commerce, tend to give to 

 others than our two fishermen the merit of the priority of 

 the invention, but in a recent sitting of the Institute, in 

 which the question was discussed by the same gentleman 

 and M. Coste (a-propos of the experiments made by the 

 Commission de Pisciculture), no mention whatever was made 

 of the operations of the two fishermen, nor were their names 

 even pronounced. This is grossly iniquitous ; and on that 

 account I express to you an ardent desire that a work, des- 

 tined to make known the process in England, shall not com- 

 mit a like injustice to my two countrymen. 



" I beg of you to excuse me, sir, for insisting so much 

 on this point. But you will understand as well as I do, how 

 important it is to leave to our two fishermen the honour 

 which belongs to them. They are not savans, it is true ; they 

 have not the advantage of being members of the Academy of 

 Sciences : but what is theirs is theirs ; and they cannot, with- 

 out crying injustice, be deprived of the merit of an invention 

 destined, as I believe, to obtain the most useful development, 

 and a brilliant renown." 



