are in London two great associations of anglers, containing together some seven thousand members. Besides these, there are two great preservation societies the Thames Angling and the Thames Restockingand four up-river preservation and restocking bodies. The interests of all these societies are identical. They have, or they are supposed to have, the same reason for existing-the promotion of the sport of angling on the Thames. But they are disunited; too often working to the same end by antagonistic ways. There are signs of a better feeling among them, it is true, and there would be no better occasion for soldering their differences than a joint scheme for restocking their river; but we must anticipate all the difficulties in the way of such an enterprise, and here undoubtedly is one of them. It is necessary to be prepared for the work being undertaken by a section of the associations only, instead of by a joint-com mittee representing them all. By whatsoever body it is taken in hand, there the hatchery must be, in charge of an experienced pisciculturist responsible for all hatching and rearing operations. Every year, as our knowledge of fish-rearing becomes deeper, the process is made simpler; but every year shows also that, without the necessary knowledge, to enter upon the process is worse than useless. Pisciculture has been far too long a hobby in this country, it is time that it became a science. In expert hands, given the water-supply, it is comparatively a simple business to hatch out fish eggs. Plenty of water-that is the main thing. In the case of the Thames, the supply of water could be afforded by the river itself. A suitable method to adopt would be to obtain the water from one of the weirs, whereby the water that flows over the hatching boxes is water aerated to the highest extent. The water-conveyed in a small pipe to a supply tank provided with an overflow outlet to prevent the swamping of the eggs should the river come down in flood would pass over the trays from the tank in properly regulated volume. Very soon the eggs would start to hatch, and then would begin one of the most interesting and beautiful processes in Nature's economy; and as possibly it is unknown to many of our readers, we may dwell upon it at some length. Within a few days of the hatching starting, the hatchingtrays are transformed into a mass of fish-life. There is no more helpless creature than the newly hatched fish; hence the great importance of protection for it at this stage, and until the umbilical sac is absorbed. So soon, however, as that is accomplished, and the young fry, as they are called now, begin to feed, a new stage is entered upon. If a healthy head of fish are to be produced, the fry must be given at this point a copious, almost unlimited, supply of water. the case of the Thames this would be a simple matter could we assume that the various backwaters and small tributary streams will be available; but an In a which the rainbow trout beautiful fish—thrives in waters similar to the Thames, we may conclude that it would thrive well in it. There has been ample opportunity for testing its qualities. A considerable stock is held by most pisciculturists in England, and their hardiness and rapid growth are spoken of in high terms; while their beauty, and, we believe, their fine quality as food, are not to be denied. In some cases they have been placed in unsuitable waters, and have failed accordingly; but in public reservoirs, and in slow and deep-flowing waters, they grow rapidly, feed heartily (without being cannibals overmuch), rise freely to the fly, and fight every ounce of their weight. The evidence all points to the rainbow as a capital fish for the Thames. Before the Thames could become the trouting river which we have pictured it earlier, a long course of assisting Nature must be entered upon. Hatcheries capable of hatching-out at least one million ova in a season would have to be established upon the banks. The fry, so soon as they had absorbed the umbilical sac, would be transferred to rearing-ponds carefully prepared to receive them, and, where suitable, to fencedoff portions of backwaters and tributary streams, and there carefully assisted to food until they have reached the age of twelve months. Thereafter they would be turned into the river. It seems reasonable to count upon fifty per cent of the original ova reaching the year-old stage. In that case, 500,000 fish could be transferred to the river; although a better policy would be to reserve at least 100,000 of them until they are two-year-olds. This is not too great a mass of fish to plant in such a river as the Thames: were we to go by the practice of pisciculturists in charge of certain American and Continental waters, we should have to estimate for two or three times as many fish. And in addition to these, fully-eyed ova ought to be planted in redds, artificially formed and protected, in which, though considerably less successfully than in the hatchery, a supplementary stock of fish could be reared. To hatch out this great quantity of ova, it will be necessary, as has been said, to build a properly devised and equipped hatchery, and it is no less necessary to place it under the control of a thoroughly competent man. Such a hatchery, and the upkeep of it most of all, will entail a large expenditure of money; and the want of money will be the first of the obstacles to present itself to the promoters of the scheme. It seems too much to expect that in England any experiment in pisciculture will receive State aid. We have no belief that the support of the County Council and other public bodies, such as would be given to it in other countries, is to be counted upon. To begin with, at any rate, the burden will have to be borne by the anglers themselves. It will be necessary, therefore, for the societies to take the matter up, and, unfortunately, united action on their part is difficult to obtain. There are in London two great associations of anglers, containing together some seven thousand members. Besides these, there are two great preservation societies-the Thames Angling and the Thames Restockingand four up-river preservation and restocking bodies. The interests of all these societies are identical. They have, or they are supposed to have, the same reason for existing-the promotion of the sport of angling on the Thames. But they are disunited; too often working to the same end by antagonistic ways. There are signs of a better feeling among them, it is true, and there would be no better occasion for soldering their differences than a joint scheme for restocking their river; but we must anticipate all the difficulties in the way of such an enterprise, and here undoubtedly is one of them. is necessary to be prepared for the work being undertaken by a section of the associations only, instead of by a joint-com mittee representing them all. business to hatch out fish eggs. Plenty of water-that is the main thing. In the case of the Thames, the supply of water could be afforded by the river itself. A suitable method to adopt would be to obtain the water from one of the weirs, whereby the water that flows over the hatching boxes is water aerated to the highest extent. extent. The water-conveyed in a small pipe to a supply tank provided with an overflow outlet to prevent the swamping of the eggs should the river come down in flood - would pass over the trays from the tank in properly regulated volume. Very soon the eggs would start to hatch, and then would begin one of the most interesting and beautiful pro cesses in Nature's economy; and as possibly it is unknown to many of our readers, we may It dwell upon it at some length. By whatsoever body it is taken in hand, there the hatchery must be, in charge of an experienced pisciculturist responsible for all hatching and rearing operations. Every year, as our knowledge of fish-rearing becomes deeper, the process is made simpler; but every year shows also that, without the necessary knowledge, to enter upon the process is worse than useless. Pisciculture has been far too long a hobby in this country, it is time that it became a science. In expert hands, given the water-supply, it is comparatively a simple Within a few days of the hatching starting, the hatchingtrays are transformed into a mass of fish-life. There is no more helpless creature than the newly hatched fish; hence the great importance of protection for it at this stage, and until the umbilical sac is absorbed. So soon, however, as that is accomplished, and the young fry, as they are called now, begin to feed, a new stage is entered upon. If a healthy head of fish are to be produced, the fry must be given at this point a copious, almost unlimited, supply of water. the case of the Thames this would be a simple matter could we assume that the various backwaters and small tributary streams will be available; but an In reasons for various among ists tell us that even such them, the almost ridiculous dainty morsels as fresh-water results connected with past shrimps, taken from a river efforts in stocking, and the where the trout indigenous to enhanced value of the river it feed upon them ravenously, should it become the home are frequently refused by the of Salmonida-it is not possible trout of another river to which to assume this. Failing these, they have been transferred. a succession of rearing-ponds Quite as much to the point is would have to be dug for the the fact noticed by ourselves reception of the output of fry that fish, fario especially, when year by year; an operation, transferred from river to river, fortunately, that would not in some fatten to extraordinary be costly not so costly as dimensions, and in others get many of the earlier stocking lank and dark, even though experiments which were of all the waters experimented little use, if, indeed, they did with have been equally well not do more harm than good. stocked with food. There can At any rate, there is no other be no more remarkable illusway out of the difficulty: the tration of the effect of food young fry can only be reared upon fish than the condition in the backwaters and tributary of English trout when acstreams, or in artificially made climatised to New Zealand ponds,-in one or other. waters. A very large English trout weighs about 5 lbs.; English trout of that weight are rare. Until the ova of English fario were acclimatised to New Zealand rivers, no members of the Salmonidæ existed in them; yet to-day it is not unusual to catch in these waters trout of from 17 lbs. to 20 lbs. in weight; and scores of fish arger, running to as high as 30 lbs., indeed, have been taken by rod and line. If, therefore, the young fry, with which the Thames is to be stocked, unfortunately have to be reared in artificial ponds, they ought to be fed plentifully with food from the Thames waters. Still more important and ticklish than the housing of the fry is the feeding of them. But if the one is properly treated, the other is greatly simplified. Hatched-out fish start life in a water with an enormous advantage if they have been reared in natural surroundings; for amid these they find an almost unlimited supply of the larvæ of the numerous insects which otherwise would have to be planted in the artificially made ponds, or supplied to the fish from time to time. Exactly as it is to be desired that the fish that are to be turned into the Thames should be bred in the tributaries and waters of the Thames, so the food with which they are supplied ought to be as far as possible of the kind that they are likely to find in the Thames. Fish cultur This is not to say, of course, that hand-feeding does not play an important part in pisciculture. It is well known that fish reared almost entirely on horse - flesh, liver, and other substances specially prepared and ground, and placed in naturally suitable conditions, have thriven remarkably well. But such fish, turned into such a river as the Thames, to find their own living there, are a doubtful quantity in restocking operations. This is a question of sport as well as of food-supply, and it seems certain that fish brought up entirely on a natural foodsupply, or almost so, give better sport than the hand-reared, especially to anglers employing the finer and more delicate methods. There is still another matter, however. A very valuable stock of yearlings, or, better still, of two-year-olds, reared and fed under the most natural conditions, might be ready for the Thames; but there remains the question of turning them in. If there is a wrong method of stocking rivers, even with the most suitable fish, reared under the most advantageous circumstances, that is the method that seems too generally to to be adopted. Fish reared by the side of the river they are intended to stock are frequently launched into it in a mass,-—one constantly hears of this foolish step; and those who take it pride themselves on having done their duty by anglers, and assisted in keeping up a head of fish which they are always so willing, and sometimes so able, to diminish. That is vanity. Take a hundred yearling trout and place them in any part of the Thames. Not twenty will make themselves at home at once in their new quarters. The remaining eighty and more will be as fish that are waterless for a considerable period, during which they offer an easy prey to the pike and perch and other cannibals. Having been bred and reared on the banks of the river into which they are to be turned, and as far as possible nourished on natural food, the fish, when they arrive at the proper age, or rather at the proper size, ought to be allowed the opportunity of taking up a position in the river at their own free will. This is easily done by substituting for the grating that has been guarding them from the river grating of larger mesh, which will permit them to drop down into the river without permitting their carnivorous enemies to run up and ravage the stock. Every fish that drops down and remains, we may be sure, has found a favourable feeding position, and is a valuable stock fish were it not so, he would certainly return to his shelter. a On some such lines as these, with a hundred points of detail which only an expert will anticipate and attend to, it would be possible to convert the Thames into a game-fish river: there is little room for diversity of opinion concerning the measures it is necessary to take to that end. It is not as to method that disagreement need be expected, but as to the desirability of the change which it is intended to effect. There are many considerations besides the adaptability of the river for salmon and trout. This is not merely a fish-culturist's question. It is not entirely an angler's question. Any |
