72

XII Salmon and Sea-Trout 81

XIII Coarse Fish 88

Appendix 93

Index 97

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

Fish culture of a certain kind dates from very early times, but its
scientific development has only come about quite recently. Most people
know that in our own country the monks had stew ponds, where they kept
fish, principally carp, and also that the Romans kept fish in ponds. In
the latter case we hear more often of the eel than of other fish. The
breeding of trout and salmon, and the artificial spawning and hatching
of ova, are, however, an innovation of our own time.

Much has been discovered about the procreation of fish, and in no case
have scientists worked so hard and discovered more than in the case of
_Salmonidae_. Fish culture, particularly trout culture, has become a
trade, and a paying one. To any one who has the least idea of the
difficulties to be overcome in rearing _Salmonidae_, this fact alone
proves that fish culture must have progressed to a very advanced stage
as a science.

This advance has in very many, if not in the majority of cases, been
made by the bitter experience gained through failures and mishaps, for
these have led fish culturists to try many different means to prevent
mischances, or to rectify them if they have happened. Some of the most
serious difficulties experienced by the early fish culturists who bred
_Salmonidae_ can now be almost disregarded, for they hardly exist for the
modern fish culturist, with the knowledge he possesses of the experience
of others.

So much of what has been done in fish culture is generally known to
those who have studied and practised it, that the beginner can nowadays
commence far ahead of the point whence the first fish culturists
started. Many of his difficulties have been overcome for him already,
and though he will not, of course, meet with the success of the man of
experience, still he ought with the exercise of an average amount of
intelligence to avoid such failures as would completely disgust him.

There are many pieces of water containing nothing but coarse fish which
are very suitable for trout of some kind. Ponds, particularly those
which have a stream running through them, will, as a ru