92 Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society. 
ponds nor much attempt at Fish-culture in the Middle-Ages. 
The salmon-fishery, however, flourished as it does now and 
laws were made for its regulation. In 1030 King Malcolm 
Canmore fixed the time for taking salmon, and several of 
his successors confirmed his laws. Under King Robert 
Bruce (1306-1329) the size of nets — stated, by the way, 
to have been a two-inch mesh, so as to allow the escape of 
young fish — was regulated. In the year 1400 Robert III. 
punished by death all persons having salmon in their pos¬ 
session out of season, but this severe law was abrogated 
by his successor James I. (1406-1437) who, however, main¬ 
tained the close season of his predecessors, with heavy 
penalties for contravention. 
In France laws were made from early times to protect 
the fisheries. In 1669 Colbert, the famous minister of Louis 
XIV., revised the French fishery-laws and his revision, 
though very imperfect, has served as a basis for the present 
laws. In other countries, also, new laws were made and 
old ones amended. Experiments were also tried from time to 
time, as at Berlin upon the fish of the river Spree, and at Lake 
Roxen, near Linkoping, in Sweden upon spawning habits 
and the protection of ova. A curious story is told that 
in the latter country the ringing of church-bells near the 
lakes was forbidden by law, lest the concussion should 
injure the tender fry! Still there was no really scientific 
improvement, the habits and natural history of fish had not 
been rightly studied and but little real advance had been 
made over the ancient ways of the Chinese and the Romans. 
But the people had awakened to the importance of the 
subject, and it was evident that a general improvement in 
Pisciculture had become a necessity, and the want was felt 
for some method which should materially increase the pro¬ 
duction of fish. Thus public demand led to investigation 
and as a result Artificial Fertilization, the true basis of 
modern scientific Fish-culture, was at length discovered in the 
year 1741 by Stephan Ludwig Jacobi of Westphalia, a Lieu¬ 
tenant in the Hanoverian army. In 1758 he communicated 
