358 ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETIES. 



which our noble salmon will have no chance, and which 

 will, doubtless, devour our best fish of all sorts by the 

 hundredweight, seeing that it has a gullet big enough 

 to admit a child of seven years old? We trust the 

 Thames will be on fire with wrath at this ill-judged 

 proceeding of the English acclimatisers, who from their 

 French allies might have derived information which 

 must have deterred them from acting on the advice of 

 Dr Gunther. We hope they will peruse Proces verbaux 

 in the bulletin of the Imperial Society for last January. 

 M. Millet is of opinion, justified by various facts ad- 

 duced, that the introduction of the Silurus into the 

 rivers of Britain, abounding with salmon and valuable 

 fish of various kinds, would be a deplorable mistake ; 

 that on the one hand, on account of its voracity, it will 

 absorb a large quantity of excellent flesh, and give in 

 return what is inferior in quantity, and especially in 

 quality; and that, on the other hand, it will speedily 

 prove a serious obstacle to the increase and propaga- 

 tion of good kinds of fish. The Zoto, which may be 

 termed a miniature Silurus, having been introduced into 

 the lake of Geneva, has bred so abundantly as to be 

 reckoned the chief cause of the disappearance of the 

 excellent trout called " La ferelle du Leman." The 

 attention of the English Society could not therefore be 

 too soon called to the inconvenience and danger of 

 introducing the Silurus into the waters of England, 

 especially those having trout. 



M. Quatrefages corroborated M. Millet, adding that 

 he had several times tasted the Silurus, and that he 

 found its flesh neither delicate nor agreeable. M. 

 Martin de Moussy assented, and stated that the Silurus 

 abounds at the mouths of the rivers of America, and 

 that its flesh is in such little esteem as only to be eaten 

 by the most miserable of the population. 



Mr Buckland, writing on 21st August 1865, seeks to 

 tranquillise us. " Do not fear, we are not going to in- 



