•114 THE NEW AET OF BREEDING FISH. 



were " 40,000 ova (impregnated) deposited ; and, 

 assuming that one third may not have come to ma- 

 tury, we may condude that we have upwards of 

 20,000 young salmon (salmon fry) now living ia 

 these ponds, beyond the reach of their natural ene- 

 mies." We shall see next summer and autumn how 

 many of these young salmon will return from the 

 sea into the river or rivers into which they shall have 

 been put, in the fry or smolt state — how many shall 

 return grilse of the average weight of 5 lb. Then 

 the success of the artificial breeding of salmon on 

 Messrs. Ash worth's plan wiUbe tested. In addition 

 to the above experimentalists we have Mr. Isaac 

 Fisher, banker, of Richmond, Yorkshire, associated 

 with other gentlemen of that town and county, breed- 

 ing salmon artificially in the river Swale. In a let- 

 ter recently written to me by Mr. Fisher, I find the 

 following paragraph : — " To-morrow I am off to the 

 Wear, where there is an obstruction to the ascent of 

 salmon up our river, the Swale, and I hope we shall 

 be able to carry our work so as to overcome this ob- 

 stacle. We intend to prosecute our experiments on 

 artificial breeding this winter with greater care, and 

 more extensively than we have yet attempted. I am 

 going over the acts of Parliament touching salmon 

 fisheries now in force, and my friend, Mr. Thirwall, is 

 also ab work. I have named the object (the submit- 

 ting to the sanction of the Legislature a salmon ex- 

 tension act) we have in view to many gentlemen in 

 this quarter. I have promises of support to a great 



