862 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
a stubborn, and a cunning lord of the waters — be 
more tickled when a huge Salmon has gorged the fly 
on his line, and been brought ashore after desperate 
struggles to escape. In delicacy of flavour too, the 
River Trout is preferred to the Salmon; but its smaller 
size renders it of less economical importance. 
The annual value of the Swedish Salmon fisheries 
may be estimated at a minimum of between 600,000 
and 700,000 crowns (<£66,000 — 77,000)“. In Norway 
the corresponding figures are half as great, or even 
more*. Young c estimated the value of the Salmon 
fisheries for 1877 in England at £100,000, in Ireland 
at £400,000, and in Scotland at £250,000. On the 
Lower Rhine, including the whole of its course in 
Holland, the average annual take for 1878 — 79 was 
44,302 fish d of an average weight of 8'28 kilo.; and 
the average weight per annum of the whole catch was 
thus 364,320 kilo., each kilogramme of Salmon fetching 
in the Rhine countries, according to Brehm 6 , between 
3 and 9 reichsmarks. The value of the Salmon is in- 
fluenced, however, in an essential degree by the depth 
of red colour shown by the flesh, a tint which seems 
most, though not entirely, to depend on the proportion 
in the Salmon’s diet of crustaceans. The flesh is also 
paler as a rule in the Sea Trout than in the true 
Salmon. The spent fish (Kelts) are of but very little 
alimentary value, and should never appear in the mar- 
ket, from which Salmon in the spawning-dress should 
also be excluded. By the legislation of most coun- 
tries all Salmon fishing during the Spawning-season 
is, as a rule, forbidden. The fry and the Parrs too 
must be protected by law if the fisheries are to retain 
their value. 
The great importance everywhere possessed by 
the Salmon fishery has induced efforts not only to 
preserve, but also to extend its bounds, and a special 
means to this end has been discovered in Salmon cul- 
ture. Hardly any other European fish — the Carp 
perhaps excepted — has lent itself more readily to cul- 
tivation; and the Salmon was also the first European 
fish to attract the attention of pisciculturists. In the 
fifteenth century a monk, Dom Pinciion by name, is 
said to have successfully hatched ova in a trough filled 
with running water; but not until long afterwards were 
more elaborate experiments instituted. In 1763 / S. 
L. Jacobi, a Westphalian farmer from Hohenhausen, 
published in a letter to the editor of the Hannover. 
Magas. (No. 23) his observations on the artificial 
breeding of Salmon. The English Government found 
the question so important that they rewarded Jacobi 
with a pension. About 1850 the French Government 
established at Htlningen in Alsace, not far from Basel 
and near the Rhine and Rhone Canal, an extensive 
hatchery, which in 1871 passed into the hands of the 
Germans. During the present century many persons 
have gained a reputation by efforts in this direction. 
First we may mention the Englishmen Shaw, Buck- 
land, and Sir James Maitland, and the German Max 
von dem Borne; but all Europeans were eclipsed by 
the American Spencer Baird ( d . 1887), who prevailed 
upon the Government and Congress of the United States 
to make grants at that time unprecedented, for the 
advancement of pisciculture. Doubts have indeed been 
raised, whether the results, especially as regards Sal- 
mon breeding, have really repaid this lavishing of 
money and exertion. But America, with practical dis- 
cernment, has not been disheartened by these more 
or less well-meant warnings from foreign quarters^. 
Salmon culture has also gained an undeniable victory 
in the above-mentioned introduction of the genus Salmo 
into Australia and New Zealand. 
The cause of the success won by Salmon culture 
and of its importance, is to be found simply in two cir- 
cumstances. First the mass of ova can be more com- 
pletely impregnated than in nature, the discovery having 
been made that the fecundation can be accomplished 
by the so-called dry method , by pouring the undiluted 
milt on the eggs in a dry vessel, in which manner its 
fertilising properties are not dispersed or weakened 
by water previous to the impregnation. Second it is 
Fischer. 
a Underdanigt Betcinkande med Forslag till Ng Fiskeristadga , Stockholm 1883, p. 148. 
b Average annual value 1877 — 81 386,000 kr. (£42,460), according to Norges officiella statistik, Ny Rmkke, Udgiv. 1884, C. No. 9. 
c See D. Milne Home, Salmon and Salmon-Fisheries , Gt. Intern. Fish. Exhib. London 1883, p. 55. 
d According to Miescher-Ruesoh, Statistische und biologisclie Beitrdge zur Kentniss vom Leben des Rheinlaches im Siisswasser, Intern. 
Ausst. Berlin 1880, Cat. Schweiz, p. 157. 
e Thierleben , 1. c., p. 200. 
f Four years before the publication of Alderman Lund’s method of cultivating fishes that spawn in spring (Vet.-Akad. Hand!. 1767). 
9 See Nordisk Aarskrift for Fiskeri 1883, p. 324, and Brown-Goode and Wilmot in D. Milne Home, 1. c., p. 27. 
