44 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



portion to the number actually caught* the result of 

 our labours was most interesting; namely, that out of 

 every thousand eggs deposited by the parent fish (over a period 

 of sixteen years), not more than one fish was afterwards 

 caught and converted into human food. 



Hence arose the question, what had become of the 

 999 eggs out of every 1,000 from which no fish had 

 ever come to the nets ? Some eggs, doubtless, had 

 never been fecundated, and these would be unpro- 

 ductive ; many others had mo>t likely been devoured 

 in an embryo state by aquatic insects, as well as by 

 trout, and other fish ; others had been hatched, and 

 in their infantile and helpless condition, consumed by 

 all classes of their natural enemies near to their birth- 

 place ; some others, when more grown, had again 

 supplied food to trout and other fish ; whilst millions 

 had migrated annually to the sea, and become deli- 

 cious food to more revenous monsters of the deep, 

 leaving one solitary fish, out of every 1,000 ova de- 

 posited, for the food of man. 



How was this to be remedied ? After carefully 

 considering where the greatest destruction took place 

 (which we suppose to be on the spawning-ground), 

 and how this could be obviated, it appeared to Mr. 

 Buist and myself that the best mode of meeting the 

 difficulty would be to collect the ova from the parent 

 fish, hatch them artificially in boxes, and retain them 

 in ponds till they were prepared for migration to the 

 sea, and then to liberate them. This mode of culti- 

 vation has now been put in practice at Stormontfield, 

 near the town of Perth, Scotland, since the year 1852 

 with great success, and the details have been pub- 

 lished. 



From the instances adduced, the question arises, 



* Of this an accurate account had been kept under a Navigation 

 Act this being the only means by which so much accuracy could 

 have been attained, as the fish were classified as grilse, i.e., salmon 

 on its first return to a river, and salmon. 



