In Great Britain[740] Shaw, Andrew, Young, Knox, and Boccius, and in
Germany, Blooch, and others carried on, at various times and with
varying methods and measures of success. In France little or nothing
was done, except by Quatrefages, till we reach the two peasants,
Rémy and Gehin, whose labours laid firm the foundation on which all
subsequent Pisciculturists have built.
In 1849 the Academy of Sciences learned that a prize had been granted
in 1845 by the Society of the Vosges to two fishermen of La Bresse,
Rémy and Gehin, for having fertilised and artificially hatched eggs
from trout, and for having raised some five to six thousand trout from
one to three years old, which continued to thrive in the waters in
which they were confined.
On investigation by the Academy, it was found that Rémy and Gehin (who
came in later) had been led from conclusions based entirely on their
own observations (for “they are quite unlettered and ignorant of the
progress of the Natural Sciences”) to employ with success methods
rather similar, but superior, to those of Jacobi.
They had enormously decreased the high mortality by their greatest and
probably unique achievement, _i.e._ provision for the fry of a natural
food. This was produced by the simultaneous rearing of a smaller and
non-cannibal species, and by the collection in the enclosed streams or
made waterways into which the young trout were liberated of hundreds of
frogs, whose spawn afforded an excellent subsistence.
Jacobi’s and Rémy’s discovery was the parent of our modern
Pisciculture. The gear and apparatus, especially in America, have been
transformed. The methods of stripping, of hatching, of feeding are
enormously improved, with mortality in eggs and fry incredibly reduced.
From this account of their discoveries and from the nature of the
methods now in use, it is obvious that the suggestion of Badham
and others that the method of breeding fish employed by modern
Pisciculturists was practically that of the Romans must go by the
board.
[Illustration: THE RAPE OF HELEN.[741]
From a Fifth Century B.C. _Scyphos_, made by the potter Hieron and
painted by the artist Makron, from Furtwängler and Reichhold, _Griech.
Vasenmalerei_, Vol. II., Pl. 85. See n. 1, p. 295.]
FOOTNOTES:
[734] _Op. cit._, p. 48.
[735] In the case of Trout, the _ova_ can be successfully transported
to South Africa or even to New Zealand, as the period of incubation
is a long one. After hatching, the alevins, fry, or young fish can be
utilised to stock fish ponds, or other waters.
[736] Cf. an article in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, for June, 1854, by
M. Jules Haime.
[737] According to _Magna Carta_, c. 33, “all kydells [dams or weirs]
for the future shall be removed altogether from the Thames and the
Medway, and throughout all England, except on the sea-shore.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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