10 
THE PARIS SOCIETE D’ACCLIMATATION. 
[Nature and Art, June 1, 18G6. 
direction, as far as the eye could range, gulls and puffins 
were collected, and, to judge from their activity and clamour, 
there appeared ample enjoyment for them amongst the fry 
beneath. We immediately bore away from the place where 
the birds were most numerously congregated, and the lines 
were scarcely overboard when we found ourselves in the 
centre of a shoal of mackerel. The hooker, however, had 
too much way. We lowered the foresail, double-reefed 
the mainsail, and then went steadily to work. Directed by 
the movements of the birds, we followed the mackerel. 
Tacking and wearing the boat occasionally, when we found 
we had overrun the shoal, for two hours we killed these 
beautiful fish as fast as the baits could be renewed and the 
lines hauled in, and when we left off fishing, actually 
wearied with sport, we found we had taken above 500 lbs. 
There is not, on sea or river, always excepting angling for 
salmon, any sport comparable to this delightful amusement. 
Full of life and bustle, everything about it is animated and 
exhilarating. A brisk breeze, a fair sky, the boat in quick 
and constant motion, all is calculated to interest and excite. 
He who has experienced the glorious sensations of sailing 
on the Western Ocean, a bright autumnal sky above, a 
deep green lucid swell around, a steady bfeeze, and as 
much of it as the hooker can stand up to, will estimate 
the exquisite enjoyment our morning’s mackerel fishing 
afforded.” * 
Excellent sport is to be at times obtained by rowing 
or sculling the boat into the thick of a shoal, and fishing 
with the white artificial fly. 
The mackerel fishing on our coasts, as practised in the 
various ways here set forth, gives employment to a great 
number of the fishing community, properly so called, and 
others indirectly concerned in the sorting, curing, packing, 
transport, and sale of the fish. Immediately on their being 
landed from the boats, large tubs of clear sea-water are 
prepared, into which they are thrown. When washed, they 
are wiped, allowed to drain, placed in small hampers or 
“ pads,” covered with paper, sewn down, directed, and 
despatched to where the “ iron horse ” waits the signal 
which shall send him screaming, rattling, and snorting 
through the wild dark night and misty morning, bearing 
his giant load of food to the hungry throngs of vast in- 
satiable London. 
* “ Wild Sports of the West of Ireland.” 
THE PARIS SOCIETE D’ACCLIMATATION. 
T HIS energetic society has recently held its tenth annual 
meeting-. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, its president, deli- 
vered the opening address, in which he gave an interesting 
account of the progress of the cultivation of the vine from 
the earliest historical period to the present time. The 
president referred to the painted records of the Egyptians, 
in which we still see the arched trellises loaded with grapes, 
the wine-makers treading out the fruit, and the ranges of 
goodly amphorae in the cellars ; he touched on the mention 
of wine in Holy Writ, on the famous vineyards of Israel, of 
Carmel, of Hermon, of Lebanon, of Sorek, and of Eshcol 
in the environs of Hebron. The wine of Sorek, he said, 
was still highly esteemed, and the vineyards of Eshcol still 
yield fruit which recalls to mind the marvellous grapes of 
the Promised Land which the messengers of Joshua carried 
with so much labour ; and he illustrated this by reference 
to a bunch of grapes grown in England on a vine from Syria. 
This bunch measured two feet in length by more than four 
feet in circumference, and weighed nineteen pounds. This 
phenomenal bunch of grapes was presented by the Duke of 
Portland to the Marquis of Rockingham. Homer spoke of 
the Thracian wine, wljicli was so strong that it would bear 
twenty times its own volume of water ; Pliny bore witness 
to its excellence and its strength ; and travellers still are 
eloquent upon the subject of the grapes of Thrace. In the 
middle ages, the vineyards of Lesbos, Chios, and Cyprus 
were held in the highest estimation, and the Crusaders 
brought cuttings of the vines of those and other famous 
spots when they returned into France and Germany. 
The Romans were slow to learn the art of cultivating the 
vine, and Pliny recounts a witty saying of Cineas, the 
ambassador of Pyrrhus, who finding the wine offered to him 
at Rome extremely acid, and making allusion to the. bad 
habit of training the vines on high trees, said — “ It was 
just to hang the mother of such wine on such an elevated 
cross.” Pliny says that the wines of the Italian peninsula 
had no reputation till the sixth century after the founda- 
tion of Rome. Wine was so scarce in Greece in the time 
when Lucullns was a child, that it was only served once at 
the end of the most sumptuous banquets ; and when the 
celebrated proconsul returned home from Asia, he distri- 
buted a hundred thousand measures of his favourite beve- 
rage, in order that all the citizens should partake his enjoy- 
ment. The conquest of Greece had, amongst other effects, 
that of introducing the vines of Chios and of Thasos into 
Italy. Pliny enumerates eighty kinds of wine, of which 
two-thirds were Italian ; he merely mentions those of Spain, 
and exhibits little esteem for those of Gaul, although the 
vine was introduced there long before by the Phocians. 
Strabo says that the vineyards of Gaul were very productive, 
though not extensive. At the time of the invasion of Caesar 
the culture of the vine in France, or rather Gaul, was con- 
fined to the Cevennes ; under Childebert it had extended to 
the Loire ; and Charlemagne caused it to be spread over the 
hills of the Pays de Vaud. M. Drouyn de Lhuys dwelt with 
natural pride on the wines of France, and also upon the zeal 
with which new kinds of vines had been introduced from 
other countries ; for instance, the famous grapes of Tokai 
had been acclimatized near Montpelier ; and, since 1862, 
experiments have been made with vines from Portugal in 
the environs of Rheims. 
The Hungarians — who produce more wine than any other 
people, with the exception of the French and Italians — owe 
their first vineyards to Rome, the legions of Probus having 
planted the TJva Ca/rthagenia, or currant, called by the 
Hungarians liadniA-ka, on the banks of the Lower Danube ; 
the grapes which yield the famous white Tokai were intro- 
duced into Hungary from Italy by the French prince, Louis 
d’ Anjou, in the fourteenth century. It was to the French 
also, said M. Drouyn de Lhuys, that Russia owed the few 
vineyards existing in the southern portion of her immense 
territories ; the Crimea was thus enabled to produce the 
wines of Soudak and Koz, and the Cossacks to fabricate 
those white wines which are converted into a sparkling wine 
resembling Champagne. The extreme coldness of the winter 
in Russia makes it necessary to have recourse to the plan 
mentioned by Strabo as being practised on the slopes of the 
Palus-Meotide ; the vine-plants are buried, during the whole 
period commencing with October and ending with March, 
four or five feet beneath the ground. The speaker mentioned 
the curious fact that China had the finest grapes in the 
world, and gave great attention to the cultivation of the 
fruit for eating, while the making of wine has long been in- 
terdicted in order to put a stop to drunkenness. One deli- 
cious kind of grape, grown near Tien-tsin, has oval berries 
two inches in length, and French connoisseurs say that they 
are unequalled. He alluded also to the growing importance 
of the vineyards of Australia, and added that a Frenchman 
was managing some vineyards on the banks of a tributary 
of the Murray, which promised, it was said, to rival some 
day the products of the mother country ; and, further, that 
the Societe d’Acclimatation had supplied that of Melbourne 
with a fine collection of cuttings, presented for the purpose 
by the Grand Referendaire of the Senate. M. Drouyn de 
Lhuys finished with the following excellent passage : — “Allow 
me only to draw two conclusions from what I have said. For 
