The erroneous view of those of Badham’s school needs correction. By tracing historically the various and not generally known discoveries which led to our modern practice of fish-breeding I hope to prove that the process of the Romans differed from ours. For this reason I subjoin a short _résumé_ showing why and how Pisciculture as we term it and know it came about.[736] The same demand for fish, the same dearth of fish, which compelled the enactment in mediæval Europe of stringent laws protecting fish, spawn, and fry, caused in ancient China and Imperial Rome the breeding of fish in lakes and _vivaria_ by non-natural methods, and in Europe from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century the quest of an unnatural or artificial method. Laws aimed at repairing the dearth of fish—a very serious economic matter when all Europe observed frequent fast days—caused by destruction of spawn and of fish during the breeding seasons by human and animal agencies, were made in England as early as the reign of our Ethelred II., who in 996 forbade the sale of any young fish.[737] Malcolm II. of Scotland fixed the times and conditions under which salmon fishing was permitted. Under Robert I. the willow of the bow-nets had to be two inches apart, so as to allow a passage for the grilse. In 1411 Robert III. punished with _death_ anyone taking a salmon in the close season. The Kings of France were not idle. Many ordinances fix the meshes of the nets and the length of saleable fish. The first known attempts at fish-breeding were made by the Chinese and Romans. M. Haime asserts that “we have no positive data as to the epoch in which the Chinese began their experiments, although everything shows that they reach back to the most remote antiquity.” The address of Mr. Wei-Ching W. Yen dates the epoch as probably that of Tao Chu Kung, who lived in the fifth century B.C.[738] In Rome considerable trade was done in the sale of young fish for stocking waters. In China the commerce in fish eggs was on a vast scale and extremely lucrative. The Jesuit missionary Du Halde writes, “Le gain va souvent au centuple de la dépense, car le Peuple se nourrit en partie de Poissons.”[739] The method, however, of both the Chinese and the Romans was to gather eggs, _already naturally fertilised_, lying at the bottom of, or adhering to weeds in, the water. The Chinese went farther by employing special traps of hurdles and mats to bar the rivers and catch the eggs deposited on these. During the long interval between the Roman Empire and the eighteenth century, we note little or no progress in the rearing of fish, although preserves became numerous in Italy and France. Kings and nobles were zealous and jealous in making and maintaining artificial ponds. Charlemagne the Great personally ordered the repairing of old and digging of new ponds. By sales from their _vivaria_, and by heavy royalties from their fisheries the religious communities amassed large revenues.