152 BRITISH FISHERIES 



The initiation of the study of the life-histories 

 of marine fishes is generally ascribed to Professor 

 G. O. Sars of Christiania University, though many 

 observations of the breeding and habits of the 

 herring were made in Scotland previous to the 

 date of Sars' work.^ The latter zoologist was, 

 however, the first to make extensive observations 

 on the subject. Sars found the ova of the cod 

 and other Gadoid fishes in the sea in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Lofoden Islands, where there is an 

 extensive cod-fishery.^ He obtained them by 

 means of a fine-meshed silk net, and by keeping 

 them in jars of clean sea- water, was able to observe 

 the hatching of the embryo at the end of a period 

 of eighteen days. Sars also obtained the ripe ova 

 from the body of the female fish, and showed that 

 it was possible to impregnate them by milt 

 taken from the naale fish of the same species. 

 This discovery was the germ of our modern 

 methods of sea-fish culture, and it may be stated 



to these works, Fries, Ekstrom, and Sundevall's Scandinavian Fishes 

 should be consulted. This is now the standard work on North 

 European ichthyology, but it is not easily obtained ; and Day's 

 British Fishes (1880-84), though less accurate in some respects, will 

 probably be more useful to the general reader. These works (which 

 represent, however, only a small fraction of the literature of the 

 subject) will give a very fair idea of the present state of our 

 knowledge. 



1 By Walker in 1803, Goodsir and Wilson in 1845-7, and 

 Professor Allman in 1860-3. See Scottish Fishery Board Report, 

 ii., 1887, p. xii. 



2 See a translation of Sars' own account of his work in the R^ort 

 of the U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries, Washington, 1877. 



