CHAP TEE XIV. 



FOREIGN FISHERY EXHIBITIONS AND 

 HOME AQITAEIUMS. 



Amsterdam Fishery Exhibition — The Variflty of Exhibits at a Fishery 

 Exhibition — The Dutch Cure — Exhibition at Arcachon— The. higher 

 aspects of a Fishery ExMbition — Questions for Solution — The great 

 Question, How to Capture ! — Mr. Buckland's Museum of Economic 

 Fish Culture — The Brighton and Crystal Palace Aquaria, and the 

 Lessons which may be derived from them. 



I HATE attended no fewer than five general " Fishery Exposi- 

 tions." Only one of these, however — " an exhibition of salmon 

 ladders, coupled with an inquiry into the present state of the 

 salmon rivers of Great Britain " — has been held in this country. 

 The others were held abroad. The first exhibition of the kind, 

 and the one which is thought to have been the best, was held at 

 Amsterdam. It was, as far as it went, a thoroughly practical 

 exposition of the arts of fishing. One thing it efiectuaJly did : 

 it brought the food-fisheries of Holland (all the continental 

 fishes, even the most insignificant and repulsive, are used as food) 

 ' into a focus, and allowed people to see what progress was being 

 made in the arts of fishing, and what position Holland occupies 

 as a fishing nation compared with France or Britain. 



A fishery exhibition, or "exposition," as it is called, is inter- 

 esting even to the uninitiated. Much taste is often displayed in 

 showing the various nets ; and there are always many curiosities 

 in the shape of fish-traps, such as the quaint-looking cylinders 

 used for the taking of eels, and the curious cages employed in 

 the capture of crustaceans, not to speak of some of the unique 

 self-acting fish-catchers which the French have invented. The 

 little instrument that gives its death-blow to the monarch of the 

 sea may be examined, as may the tiny hook that takes the trout 

 a prisoner. The fishes themselves, either alive or dead, can be 



