38 THE NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS 



ova shall be under the milt, and be certain to be im- 

 pregnated with it, after the manner of the natural 

 spawning in rivers, the ova at this time being full 

 of small microscopic holes, and ready to receive the 

 milt. The seed so impregnated can be carried for 

 many miles, and deposited in any barren river that 

 has a connection with the sea, and the success is sure ; 

 they will hatch, go to the sea in regular course, return 

 to the same river, breed there, and increase to im- 

 mense numbers, if they could, by any means, be kept 

 from the " claws " of legislators. Half the rivers of 

 the kingdom are barren at this moment, or the next 

 thing to barren. Why should such a thing exist for 

 one year ? If they are public property, the thing is 

 excusable for what's all men's property, is no man's ; 

 but if those be private property, certainly the pro- 

 prietors are asleep. 



We find that the artificial breeding of fishes is not 

 exactly a new science, for, ninety years ago, S. L. 

 Jacobs wrote an account of experiments he had made 

 on the spawn of fishes previous to the year 1763, in 

 the form of a letter to the editor of the " Hanover 

 Magazine," in which he says : 



" Sir, I have thought it a duty incumbent on me 

 to lay my observations on the breeding of trout and 

 salmon, as well as on other subjects, before the public. 

 It would be needless, and not to my present purpose, 

 to mention every trifling experiment which I have made 

 the last sixteen years, before my discovered inven- 

 tion, and in twenty-four years more afterward, on 

 the artificial increase of trout and salmon. Perhaps 

 I may be induced to give a more circumstantial ac- 

 count on this subject. The box, trough, or water- 

 bed, in which the eggs, animated with the milt or 

 sperma of the male trout, are scattered, needs no par- 



