80 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
furnished such abundant swarms of small fry, as had in former 
days served to toll the sea fishes toward the land, while the pas- 
sage of boats and steamers and the increase of population and of 
fishing tended to destroy or to scare away the fish of the small 
bays and coves. The balance of nature had thus been changed, 
and one part had reacted against another. 
The steady diminuition would have gone uninterruptedly on 
but for the revival of fish-culture. 
The discovery of artificial impregnation of eggs is such a sim- 
ple one that the only wonder is that it was not practiced long 
ago. Country boys who watch the brooks in autumn, know 
how trout deposit their eggs; and fishermen, after hauling their 
seine ashore, are familiar with the spectacle of spawn and milt 
flowing from the ripe fishes. It is more than lhkely that many 
persons have in the past times practiced the artificial fecunda- 
tion of ova. The process was described in 1420 by Dom Pinch- 
on, a monk of the abbey of Réome. It was re-discovered by 
Jacobi, of Westphalia, in 1763, and several naturalists availed 
themselves of this method in their embryological researches. 
Among others, Louis Agassiz, who, in 1838, hatched the impreg- 
nated eggs of Swiss white-fish by tying them in a muslin bag, 
and sinking it on the margin of the lake of Neufchatel. 
In 1843, two fishermen of the Vosges, Joseph Rémy and An- 
toine Géhin, not only hatched a large number of trout, but de- 
vised means of feeding them artificially. They succeeded in 
stocking several water courses in their neighborhood with these» 
trout fry. Seven years later their results had become known to 
the scientific men in Paris. Napoleon the Third had already 
begun his elaborate measures for the material aggrandizement 
of France, and he took up fish-culture and the acclimatization of 
new animals among other schemes. He disliked the professors 
of the Garden of Plants, because of their Orleanist sentiments, 
and he set up a rival under the name of the Garden of Acclim- 
atization, of which fish-culture was in some sort a branch. lts 
apostle was Professor Coste. With large appropriations from 
the central government he established at Huningue, near the 
Swiss frontier, a large and elaborate station for fish-culture. 
His enthusiasm was great. He estimated that the yield of fresh 
