The principle of this system is very easily comprehended; but success depends on many niceties of manipulation, and much experience in judging whether the fish, both male and female, are in the proper condition for operating upon.
This experience is not gained without much practice. This practice Ramsbottom has in great perfection. There is no doubt the artificial breeding of fish will be found exceedingly beneficial, if properly carried out; and I hope to see the time when Salmo Salar may catch half-a-dozen of his namesakes at Whitewell, any good day in the season.
I am, Sir,
Yours very truly,
THOMAS GARNETT.
* * * * *
ARTIFICIAL BREEDING OF FISH—(CONTINUED).
CLITHEROE, 9th January, 1854.
To the Editor of the "Manchester Guardian."
SIR,—As I believe that Salmo Salar is quite as desirous of increasing the breed of Salmon as myself, the controversy between us may be reduced to very narrow limits. He believes that Trout eat very few of the Salmon ova, and therefore cannot do much harm. I will just mention a few facts which make me think otherwise. When Ramsbottom was in Galway he caught in one night twenty-five Trout on the spawning ground, which had on the average not less than five hundred ova in each of their stomachs; from one of their throats he squeezed a thousand. As the net would not take a fish of less than two pounds, how many had passed through it? When he was at Knowlmere, in sweeping the river for spawning fish he caught nine Par, two Trouts, and a Sprod on the spawning bed, all of which were gorged with Salmon spawn; when he went into the brooks there he never found a pair of Trout spawning without also finding a number of smaller fish behind, some of which he caught, and in all such cases found them gorged with roe up to the throat; the male Trout would occasionally drive them off, but as soon as he returned to the female they were again close in the rear.
In the "Perthshire Courier" of the 22nd December is the following statement: The men employed in taking the breeding fish secured a Whitling on Tuesday about three-quarters of a pound, and as they observed Salmon ova coming out of his mouth he was brought to the office of Mr. Buist for examination; on being opened, upwards of three hundred impregnated Salmon ova were taken from his stomach quite undigested. It may be, therefore, fairly presumed, that this youngster had taken this quantity for his breakfast; if he dined and breakfasted in the same style each day during the breeding season, it is difficult to estimate the expense of his keep. Such is the amount of loss of impregnated roe in one morning from one trifling fish; what must it be throughout the season from the various enemies it has to encounter?
Salmo Salar is facetious about the destruction of the roe by insects, and says, "because an aquatic insect will devour a minnow's egg, which is not as large as a pin's head, we have no right to infer that it will devour that of a Salmon, which is as large as a pea; it would be just as reasonable to suppose that because a wasp feasts upon a cherry, or a strawberry, therefore he will eat a turnip or a mangold wurtzel." As he seems to have made a slip of the pen in naming the two last fruits, allow me to supply what I suppose he meant to say, which I presume was that because a wasp eats a cherry or a strawberry, we must not therefore infer that he will either eat a pear or a plum; if that is his meaning, I think I can understand it. If he adheres to his own version, I would merely observe that there is no analogy in the two cases. But the inference does not rest upon mere supposition; the freshwater shrimps at Knowlmere were seen devouring the ova in the spawning-boxes. We have seen above that Par eat ova as well as Trout. Let us suppose that the millions of Smolts (as Par) have only one meal each of Salmon roe, and we will stint them to twenty ova apiece. I fear that very few of the five millions which Salmo Salar says are deposited in the Hodder will be left to grow into Salmon. In addition to these, ducks, both wild and tame, eat them greedily. When Ramsbottom was in Galway he saw that the tame ducks frequented the spawning ford, and the superintendent bought one, and found its crop quite full of Salmon roe. If this had been buried eighteen inches in the gravel (as Salmo Salar suggests), the duck would have had some difficulty in extracting it; but so far as my experience goes, it is not usually one-half that depth, although this varies in different rivers. Then, if one Salmon is able to plough up gravel which is cemented together by sand and long continuance in one place, why should not another be able to do the same when the gravel is loose and easily removed? But there is another enemy whom Salmo Salar has not mentioned, who does more harm than all the rest: that is the poacher, and I fear that many of the Salmon which Salmo Salar saw spawning in the Hodder and its tributaries have since then made a journey overland. At all events, I am credibly informed that in one season a gang of poachers took seventy Salmon in the Hodder. Is he sure they have taken none this season? Salmo Salar seems to think that one pair of Salmon will not spawn on the same ground, which has been previously occupied by another pair; but he has only to watch the same ridd for a week or two to be convinced he is mistaken. As to fish refusing to spawn on new gravel, I may state that when Mr. Fawkes was making his experiments at Farnley he put some new gravel into his brook, and there were sixteen pairs of Trout spawning on it the next morning. Salmo Salar says that if he can have those simple checks which he enumerates to the present practices, he will restore abundance of Salmon to the Ribble; they are all very good in their way, but do not go quite far enough, and they would do very little good without a fourth, namely, protection from the poacher for the fish on the spawning beds. Until this can be given more efficiently than it is at present, all the rest will be unavailing; and until the upper proprietors can have a greater interest in the preservation of Salmon than they now have, they cannot be expected to give themselves much trouble on the subject.