DANUBE SALMON. 75 



ference in the productive power of the water. I would like to 

 know with exactitude if, whUe the waters of Prance are being 

 replenished, the rivers in Switzerland and Germany are not be- 

 ginning to be in their turn impoverished 1 It surely stands to 

 reason that if the impoverishment of streams resulting from 

 natural causes be aided by the carrying away of the eggs by zealous 

 wploraimrs, they must become in a short time almost totally 

 barren of fish. The best plan, in my opinion, is for each river 

 to have its own breeding-ponds on the plan of those of Stormont- 

 field on the river Tay. 



It would scarcely pay to breed the commoner fishes of the 

 lakes and rivers, as pike, carp, and perch ; the conmionest fish 

 bred at Huningue is the fera, whilst the most expensive is the 

 beautiful ombre chevalier, the eggs of which cost about a penny 

 each- before they are in the water as fish. The general calcula- 

 tion, however, appertaining to the operations carried on at 

 Huningue gives twelve living fish for a penny. The fera is very 

 prolific, yielding its eggs in thousands ; it is called the herring 

 of the lakes ; and the young, when first bom, are so small as 

 scarcely to be perceptible. The superintendent at Huningue 

 told me that several of them had escaped by means of the canal 

 into the Rhine, where they had never before been found. I 

 inquired particularly as to the Danube salmon, but found that 

 it was very diflBcult to hatch, especially at first, great numbers 

 of the eggs, as many sometimes as 60 or 70 per cent, being de- 

 stroyed ; but now the manipulators are getting better acquainted 

 with the modus operandi, and it is expected that by and by the 

 assistants at Huningue will be as successful with this fish as 

 they are with all others. Even allowing for a very considerable 

 loss in the artificially-manipulated ova — and it is thought that 

 two-thirds at least of the eggs of this fish are ia some Way lost 

 — it is certain that the artificial system of protection is immen- 

 sely more productive in fish than the natural one, for it has been 

 said, in reference especially to the salmon of the river Tay, that 

 hardly one in a thousand of the eggs ever reaches maturity as a 

 proper table-fish, such is the enormous destruction of eggs and 

 young fry ; and the percentage of destruction in Catholic 

 countries is greatly larger, because during those fast-days enjoined 

 by the church fish must be obtained. 



The pisdicultural establishment of M. de Galbert, one of 

 the most important of the kind which exists in Prance, is worthy 

 of notice. It is situated at Buisse in the canton of Voiron in 



