CoMMENCEMENT OF OySsTrR-CULTURE. 351 
neum, stored in the Treasury at Naples, I saw a glass vase of 
fish-eges similar to those of the genus Salmo. Those eggs 
and their mode of preservation induced me to believe that a 
higher class of men inhabited Italy seventeen hundred years 
ago than do now in this iron age of intelligence. Is it not 
true that aggregations of high intellects—like celestial nebu- 
le, or the focal coruscation of rays of light and heat—cluster 
at different times on different parts of the earth, to reflect in- 
tellectual hght to guide coming generations ? 
Well, it is stated that the inventions in ancient Rome, first 
devised to pamper the children of luxury, afterward were 
employed to supply subsistence to the nation. Des viviers 
having stocked their preserves with many ornamental fishes, 
whose graceful gambols, beautiful forms, and colors chatoy- 
antes had delighted the ladies of that interesting period, did 
not disdain to encourage the increase of food-fishes also, with 
which their preserves were richly stocked. 
But, if the Romans did not hatch fishes artificially, that 
they excelled in the cultivation of Crustacea can not be suc- 
cessfully refuted. The removal of oysters from one water 
and planting them in another was begun by Sergius Orata at 
the commencement of the Christian era, by bringing them 
from Brindisium and planting them in Lake Lucrin, which, 
according to the evidence of the gowrmeét chief Crassus, 
greatly improved their flavor. Orata finally covered Lake 
Lucrin with reticulated paraphernalia made of wood, raised 
at one end on stone piers, and placed in numerous positions 
for the convenience of the deposit of oyster-spat. The Lake 
of Fusaro also, between the ruins of Cum and the promon- 
tory of Misennm—‘“ the Avernus of the ancients”—being salt, 
was planted with oysters; and the plans for oyster culture 
adopted by the Romans were quite similar to those pursued 
in France at present. 
My investigations of the rise and progress of fish-culture 
by the method of stripping the ova from the female and the 
milt from the male fish, and mixing them for vivification, in- 
