THE DISEASES OF FISH. 37 



double their weight, and be fish worth taking. Do 

 not act on the principle that if you do not take 

 them, some one else will ; but do your share man- 

 fully, and your good example will, without doubt, 

 have its effect on others. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE DISEASES OF FISH. 



I AM very often asked the question, Are fish sub- 

 ject to sickness and disease the same as other orders 

 of creation? My experience with them indicates 

 that they are. Sickness is not only liable to take 

 place among individuals, but an epidemic sometimes 

 breaks out among certain kinds which destroys them 

 in large numbers, and nothing can be done to check 

 the scourge, until it has run its course, as is usual- 

 ly the case with cholera, yellow fever and other con- 

 tagious diseases, when they attack portions of the 

 human race. 



It is quite a singular fact that, when an epidemic 

 breaks out in any waters, only one kind of fish is 

 affected at the same time, which shows that the 

 disease cannot be caused by any impurity of the 

 waters or any cause of a like nature. If it were, 

 all the different kinds of fish in that body of water 

 would be affected in a similar manner. 



As is the case with the human race, certain fish 

 escape the contagion, and it is a pretty good rule 



