PISCICULTURE. 401 



market-stands the trout, salmon, and other fish, once so 

 abundant, commanded an exorbitant rate. 



" The ox, the sheep, the ewine, each feathered creature, 

 Were reprodnced of every kind, and form and feature ; 

 The finny race were nearly from the waters gone, 

 The nocks had ne'er supplied the meat alone ; 

 When science, art, and labor, well combined, 

 Re-peopled streams and depths with millions of each kind." 



Indiscriminate fishing by net, Bpear, and even by hook, in 

 spawning-time and out, and through the ice in breeding- 

 time, were the causes of the rapid depreciation in numbers 

 of the subject of the angler's toil, and of the poor man's 

 food. 



The New York Sunday Times of March 19, 1854,. in com- 

 menting upon the wholesale and wanton destruction of fish, 

 says of parts of Connecticut : " The unchecked lust for shil- 

 lings has not left a fish or a bird in whole counties. So, 

 too, on the south side of Long Island, once esteemed among 

 the best trouting localities in this State, where mischievous 

 boys and vulgar men have been allowed to destroy them 

 until now, a trout can scarcely be found. Nor are these 

 worse than some of our city ' sportsmen ! ' whose highest 

 ' idea of sport is wanton destruction.' We heard one boast 

 last summer of having killed twelve hundred trout in two 

 days at Oatskill ! Of course, they were ail young fish, prob- 

 ably three inches long. A very few brought home (putrid 

 when they arrived), and the remainder left to perish on the 

 bank of the stream. . . The man ought to be prohibited from 

 all ' sport ' but catching bull-frogs forever after." 



But thanks to the energy and perseverance of two poor 



' and humble fishermen, by the names of Kemy and Gehin, of 



the rivers flowing from the mountains of the Vosges in 



