INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. ' 15 



may be grown to weigh a pound or more, in three years, 

 and are worth seventy-five cents or a dollar a pound in 

 market. 



If my querist reads scientific journals, he will see that 

 Dr. Daniell, of Savannah, transported the fecundated spawn 

 of shad across the country to a tributary of the Alabama, 

 ten years ago, and hatched them out and stocked that noble 

 river and its branches with this favorite fish. If he only 

 reads the newspapers, he must have found out that Seth 

 Green sends trout spawn by thousands to all parts of the 

 Northern and Middle States. That Dr. Fletcher has brought 

 salmon eggs from the British province of New Brunswick 

 to stock the salmonless rivers of New England, and that 

 salmon spawn has even been sent from England to Australia 

 to introduce that noble fish there. That barren salmon 

 rivers of Ireland and Scotland have by means of fish culture 

 been restored to their former fecundity; and rivers, and 

 even brooks, that before had no salmon, have been made 

 fruitful of them. 



There is scarcely a month in the calendar in which fish 

 of some genus or other do not spawn. Some deposit their 

 eggs on stones, brush, or aquatic plants, the ova adhering 

 by a glutinous substance which surrounds them. Others, 

 as the salmon family, excavate their nests on gravelly beds 

 in running water, cover their spawn and leave it to the 

 care of mother nature. '•* Some, such as the stickleback, the 

 sunfish, the black-bass, and others of the perch family, 

 build nests and stand guard over them.* Others, including 

 some species of Siluridae, known as catfish, have a parental 



