TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 71 



been accurately weighed, and he gave a table showing the relative value (com- 

 mercially speaking) of oysters from oyster-beds, or proposed oyster-beds of Eng- 

 land, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He stated that he was still carrying on his 

 experiments near Heme Bay ; and he was happy to be enabled to report that the 

 French sytem of oyster- culture had been successfully carried out in a creek near 

 Havant, not far from Portsmouth ; and although he had not yet seen the results 

 of the experiments himself, he could not help congratulating the managers upon 

 their well-deserved success. Determined that England should be well represented, 

 and that her oyster-fisheries should not be entirely ignored by our neighbours in 

 France, he had at this moment one set of specimens at the Fish-Culture Exhibition 

 at Ai-cachon, in the south, and another at a similar exhibition at Boulogne, in the 

 north of that coimtry, as well as his own collection at the Royal Horticultiu-al 

 Gardens, South Kensington, where he was gradually making a complete series il- 

 lustrative of the culture of oysters, as well as that of salmon. 



On the Scientific Cultivation of a Salmon River. By Frank Buckland. 



The author compared the ascent of salmon from the sea to the interior of the 

 country (where it laid its eggs) to the process of following a tree from its root 

 upwards to its upper branches. The salmon is a very clever fish ; the feeling it 

 shows when preparing to lay its eggs is so well marked, that he preferred to call it 

 " reason " rather than "instinct." The distance which salmon ascend into hill 

 country under the powerful feeling by which they are influenced when preparing to 

 deposit their eggs, he instanced by their ascent of the Rhine to a distance of 400 

 miles, where they are stopped by the falls of Schaflhausen. Allow the salmon to 

 lay, he said, and it will abimdnntly repay the care ; put ladders on weirs for it to 

 swim up, not nets to catch it. The salmon has many enemies — hakes, cormorants, 

 and herons ; otters also hunt the salmon, not only for food, but as we ourselves do, 

 for sport. Of aU the enemies the salmon has to contend against he has not a more 

 terrible than the millers. When a salmon comes to a water-wheel it will stay by 

 it for days. The miller stops the wheel, and lets down a trap at the lower end of 

 the mill-race and catches the fish. Steamers, too, are its enemies ; and though the 

 salmon is not a nervous fish it is delayed by them. It is very sensitive to smell ; 

 when it comes near large towns it will not venture to pass up rivers filled with im- 

 purities. What does it do then ? It waits until a flood conies, and then ascends 

 in purer waters. Waterfalls are no friends to the salmon. There is a waterfall at 

 Knaresborough. People thought the salmon used to jump every Sundaj' morning 

 to please them, but the fact was the millers were obliged by law to let the water 

 down on Sunday, and then the fish leaped. Poachers are gi-eat enemies of salmon. 

 During the winter months it was not an uncommon thing for one poacher to destroy 

 many fish. He heard from a converted poacher a confession that made his hair 

 stand on end — he used to feed his pigs with salmon eggs ! Mr. Ashworth, of Gal- 

 way, has now the model fisheiy of the United Kingdom. The wonderful increase 

 in the number offish caught, and therefore its money value, showed the use of cul- 

 tivation. To cultivate a salmon fishery, however, one must not lie in bed in winter ; 

 this business admits of no idleness. Mr. Ashworth asked the salmon poachers how 

 much they made by poaching during the winter, and gave them double the money 

 to let the spawning fish alone. He had from 120 to 130 men employed to see that 

 the salmon were not disturbed during the winter. He himself was proud of having 

 opened up the river Stour at Canterbury. There had been no salmon (Salmom'dee) 

 for many years — a net had been placed across the river. A deputation waited on 

 the mayor and corporation, an association was founded, and the result was, the 

 Salmonidse were on the increase. The Thames used to be a sabnon river. The 

 Eton boys used to catch " skeggers;" but now there were none in the Thames, for the 

 salmon were not allowed to go up by the weirs erected on accoimt of navigation. 

 If they were allowed to go up, there would soon be sufficient eggs. He himself 

 had hatched in his back kitchen 30,000 eggs. He was pleased to say that a salmon 

 -had been brought to him which had been caught at Gravesend in a whitebait net. 



