Long before the organisation of the Dutch fisheries there existed a quaint colony of Italian fisher people on the borders of a more poetic water than the Zuyder Zee. I allude to the eel-breeders of Comacchio on the Adriatic. This particular fishing industry is of very considerable antiquity, as we have well-authenticated statistics of its produce, extending back over three centuries. The lagoons of Comacchio afford a curious example of what may be done by design and labour. This place was at one time a great unproductive swamp, about one hundred and forty miles in circumference, accessible to the waves of the sea, where eels, leeches, and the other inhabitants of such watery regions, sported about unmolested by the hand of man; and its inhabitants—the descendants of those who first populated its various islands—isolated from the surrounding civilisation, and devoid of ambition, have long been contented with their obscure lot, and have even remained to this day without establishing any direct communication with surrounding countries. The precise date at which the great lagoon of Comacchio was formed into a fish-pond is not known, but so early as the year 1229 the inhabitants of the place—a community of fishers as quaint, superstitious, and peculiar as those of Buckie on the Moray Firth, or any other ancient Scottish fishing port—proclaimed Prince Azzo d’Este Lord of Comacchio; and from the time of this appointment the place grew in prosperity, and the fisheries from that date began to assume an organisation and design which had not before that time been their characteristic. The waters of the lagoon were dyked out from those of the Adriatic, and a series of canals and pools were formed suitable for the requirements of the peculiar fishery carried on at the place, all of which operations were greatly facilitated by the Reno and Volano mouths of the Po forming the side boundaries of the great swamp; and, as a chief feature of the place, the marvellous fish labyrinth celebrated by Tasso still exists. Without being technical, we may state that the principal entrances to the various divisions of the great pond—and it is divided into a great many stations—are from the two rivers. A number of these entrances have been constructed in the natural embankments which dyke out the waters of the lagoon. Bridges have also been built over all these trenches by the munificence of various Popes, and very strong flood-gates, worked by a crank and screw, are attached to each, so as to regulate the migration of the fish and the entrance and exit of the waters. A very minute account of all the varied hydraulic apparatus of Comacchio would only weary the reader; but I may state generally, and I speak on the authority of M. Coste, that these flood-gates place at the service of the fish-cultivators about twenty currents, which allow the salt waters of the lagoon to mingle with the fresh waters of the river. Then,