MARITIME PISCICULTURE-LAGOON 

 OF COMACCHIO.* 



THERE is urgent need for the application of science to 

 the important branch of natural history which relates 

 to fishes ; the folly and the greed of man having counter- 

 acted the beneficence of the Creator, and occasioned 

 an alarming diminution in the numbers of even those 

 species of fish the prolific energies of which might be 

 thought inexhaustible. A sturgeon has been computed 

 to produce 7,653,200 eggs ; and yet this is a fish by no 

 means superabundant. If all the ova of a herring were 

 fertile, it has been calculated that it would not require 

 more than eight years to fill up the bed of the ocean, 

 and that if our globe were covered with water, it would 

 soon be unable to contain this single fish ! And yet, 

 but for the restraining interference of legislation, even 

 the herring would ere long bear witness to the power 

 of man in sensibly reducing the numbers of a fish which 

 may be regarded as the type of abundance. 



In this country the depopulation of our rivers has 

 long been lamented. It is the same in France ; fresh- 



* Voyage d' Exploration sur le Littoral de la France et de 1'Italie. 

 .Rapport h M. le Ministre de 1' Agriculture, du Commerce, et des 

 Travaux Publics, sur les Industries de Comacchio, du Lac Fusaro, 

 de Marennes et de 1'Anse de 1'Aiguillon. Par M. Coste, Membre 

 de 1'Institut, Prof esseur au College de France. Paris : Imprimerie 

 Imperiale, 



