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distinct as a class than those who seek their living on the sea, 

 yet in some localities they also form a distinct part of the com- 

 munity. The boats they employ, with their flat bottoms and 

 inelegant shapes, rarely rowed, and more often poled, are very 

 different from the sea-going ones. Again, the nets they use are 

 often different and always of smaller size. In fresh waters it is 

 easier to employ illegal methods for capturing fish, and various 

 poisonous substances, such as cocculus, euphorbia, lime, &c, 

 besides dynamite, have but too often decimated the finny inha- 

 bitants of many a streamlet or pond. a. Amphibia. The frog 

 (liana esculenta) forms in Northern and Central Italy a not 

 unimportant item of the small gains of the freshwater fisherman; 

 especially in spring ad autumn they are brought alive in thousands 

 to the market. They are classed with the finer sorts of freshwater 

 fish, te fleshier parts of the hind legs being considered a delicacy 

 by many. — b. Fish. A most marked con.rast exists between 

 the freshwater fish fauna of Northern and Peninsular Italy. South 

 of the Appennines the species are few and of slight importance- 

 small trout in the mountain streams, carp, tench, barbel, rudd, 

 and a few other Leucisci, with the ubiquitous eel, nearly com- 

 plete the list, and barely afford a precarious living to their captors. 

 The more important rivers and larger lakes of Northern Italy 

 are better stocked and give opportunities for a larger piscatorial 

 industry. The most esteemed species are: perch, Coitus gobio, 

 Lota vulgaris, trout, grayling, pike, shad, and sturgeon. In the 

 larger lakes of Lombardy, and moie especially in Lago Maggiore 

 and that of Garda, lake- trout of large size (Salmo lemanus and 

 S. carpio) aie caught in considerable numbers; and again the shad 

 (Clupea alosa) of two varieties: one resident known as « Agone », 

 the other migratory entering rivers from the sea in spring, called 

 « Cheppia ». The Po and Adige are besides periodically visited 

 by numerous sturgeons (Acipenser sturio, A. huso, A. Naccarii, 

 and A. Xardui), some of which attain a very large size. c. Cru- 

 stacea. The common crayfish (Astacus Jluviatilis) is pretty com- 

 mon all over Northern and Central Italy, but of late years it has 

 been nearly exterminated by a curious epidemic, manifest in an 

 infusorian which fixed itself in countless numbers over the bran- 

 chiae, finally preventing respiration. Crayfish-culture has not, it 



