224 Dr. Mac Cuiloch on the Changing 



nard tribe, the dog-fishes, and many more which I need not enu- 

 merate. The fault of those who have attempted the transportation, 

 has been to take fishes which had been long hooked, dragging upon 

 Long Lines, or entangled for a night or more in a trammel net. 

 Owing to the peculiar distribution of the arteries in fishes, their 

 muscular power is speedily exhausted by violent exertion; and 

 hence they are literally killed, or nearly so, before they are taken 

 out of the water in such cases; an effect which, in the case of salmon 

 and trout taken by a fly, is vulgarly called drowning. This must 

 be avoided ; and it is well known that when cod are taken by hand 

 lines, and thence transferred to the wells of the fishing boats, they 

 always live, unless the gills or stomach have been much injured by 

 the hook. 



As far as this may be considered a question of economy or uti- 

 lity, it is not necessary to say much. It may perhaps, abstractedly, 

 be deemed of little consequence whether an inhabitant of Germany 

 is condemned to eat roach and gudgeon, or to regale on whiting and 

 smelts ; or whether, in a Highland lake, john-dory is to be substi- 

 tuted for pike, and turbot for par. But all the improvements in 

 the details of human life may, if we please, be measured by 

 the same rule. We have naturalized and domesticated the wild 

 animals that walk and fly, to be our fellow-labourers, our compa- 

 nions, our servants in the chase, our amusement, and our food. 

 Nature has given us crabs and sloes, which we have converted by 

 our industry and perseverance into golden pippins and green gages. 

 It is not an illaudable pursuit to apply to the uses of man all those 

 bounties which nature has spread around him ; but on the posses- 

 sion and perfect enjoyment of which this law has been stamped, 

 that without labour and industry, they shall not be attained. 



Yet while on this question of economy, it may not be improper 

 to suggest a few doubts respecting the prudence of that conduct 

 which, in this country, neglects the sources of rural profit to be 

 derived from cultivating the produce of its fresh waters. In 

 France, it is said that the value of an acre of water is equal to that 

 of an acre of land ; and these ponds are rented by great fishermen, 

 or fishmongers, who adapt these systems of fishing their farms in 



