PISCICULTURE TOO LIMITED. 83 



he vowed to fish no more. Taking a last look at rod 

 and tackle, he turned to bis books for consolation. He 

 found it in a French treatise on pisciculture. Fired 

 with a vision of fins, he propagated the new idea, till 

 at last it assumed a local habitation in the now famous 

 salmon-rearing pond at Stormontfield. 



Nature is no doubt a bountiful mother, but her sys- 

 tem, notwithstanding, is founded on the principle that 

 the larger creatures shall devour the smaller, and that 

 all creatures in the first stage of their existence shall 

 be exposed to innumerable accidents, tending very 

 sensibly to the limitation of their numbers. The 

 salmon is not only exposed to these natural causes of 

 destruction, but also to the malice prepense of all-de- 

 vouring man, whose wiles are so successful that recourse 

 must be had to artificial rearing, unless we desire the 

 almost total extirpation of this noble fish. We there- 

 fore take a lively interest in pisciculture, and have 

 endeavoured to enlist the public feeling in its favour by 

 detailing the result of its introduction into Perthshire. 



Considering how gratifying this has been to the 

 fishing proprietors of the Tay, we are astonished at the 

 small scale of their doings at Stormontfield. There is 

 only one feeding-pond, of a quarter of an acre in size. 

 A second is indispensable ; because, as about half of 

 the fry refuse to leave it at the end of the first year, 

 newly-produced fry cannot be introduced into the pond 

 without, the certainty of being devoured by their elder 

 brethren. From the want of a second pond, no ova 

 have been deposited in the breeding-boxes during last 

 winter. And so a whole salmon -producing year has 

 been lost for the sake of a small economy. Surely this 

 is penny wise and pound foolish. As Dr Esdaile pointed 

 out (in his printed letter to the Tay proprietors, 27th 

 August 1853), the Stormontfield lade furnishes unrivalled 

 facilities for rearing young salmon, without having re- 

 course to an apparatus of breeding-troughs. If these 

 are not taken advantage of, and if the successful result 



