Angling

ANGLING, the art or practice of the sport of catching fish by means of a baited hook or "angle" (from the Indo-European root ank–, meaning "bend"). It is among the most ancient of human activities, and may be said to date from the time when man was in the infancy of the stone age, eking out a precarious existence by the slaughter of any living thing which he could reach with the rude weapons at his command. It is probable that attack on fishes was at first much the same as attack on animals: a matter of force rather than of guile, and conducted by means of a rude spear with a flint head. It is probable, too, that the primitive harpooners were not signally successful in their efforts, and so set their wits to work to devise other means of getting at the abundant food which waited for them in every piece of water near their caves. Observation would soon show them that fish fed greedily on each other and on other inhabitants of the water or living things that fell into it, and so, no doubt, arose the idea of entangling the prey by means of its appetite. Hence came the notion of the first hook, which, it seems certain, was not a hook at all but a "gorge," a piece of flint or stone which the fish could swallow with the bait but which it could not eject afterwards. From remains found in cave-dwellings and their neighbourhood in different parts of the world it is obvious that these gorges varied in shape, but in general the idea was the same : a narrow strip of stone or flake of flint, either straight or slightly curved at the ends, with a groove in the middle round which the line could be fastened. Buried in the bait it would be swallowed end first; then the tightening of the line would fix it cross-wise in the quarry's stomach or gullet and so the capture would be assured. The device still lingers in France and in a few remote parts of England in the method of catching eels which is known as "sniggling." In this a needle buried in a worm plays the part of the prehistoric.gorge.

The evolution of the fish-hook is still a matter of doubt. The gorge pure and simple is most efficient when perfectly straight, so the stages of its development into a curved hook—if it did so develop—are not easy to follow. But barbed harpoons of the later stone age have been found, and it is logical to conclude that once the custom of barbing fish-spears had been established, the same modification may easily have been applied to gorges also. In this case it would be found that many fish were hooked by the barb, and this form of angular hook, having the advantage of enabling fish to be "struck" without waiting for the bait to be gorged, would follow as a natural corollary to the barbed gorge. Hooks of this kind made out of thorn, and in one case out of an insect's leg, are still in use among primitive races. The trans formation of this angular hook into a curved implement prob ably took place as a convenient method of manufacture when metal began to be used. Material used obviously varied in differ ent parts of the world. The nature of the line or the rod that may have been used with these early hooks is largely a matter of con jecture. The first line was perhaps the tendril of a plant, the first rod possibly a sapling. But it is fairly obvious that the rod must have been suggested by the necessity of getting the bait out over obstacles which lay between the fisherman and the water, and that it was a device for increasing both the reach of the arm and the length of the line. It seems not improbable that the rod very early formed a part of the fisherman's equipment.

Literary History.

Fromprehistoric times down to com paratively late in the days of chronicles, angling appears to have remained a practice ; its development into an art or sport is a modern idea. In the earliest literature references to angling are not very numerous, but there are passages in the Old Testament which show that fish-taking with hook as well as net was one of the common industries in the East, and that fish, where it was obtainable, formed an important article of diet. In Numbers (xi. 5 ) the children of Israel mourn for the fish which they "did eat in Egypt freely." So much too is proved by the monuments of Egypt ; indeed more, for the figures found in some of the Egyp tian fishing pictures using short rods and stout lines are some times attired after the manner of those who were great in the land. This indicates that angling had already, in a highly civil ized country, taken its place among the methods of diversion at the disposal of the wealthy, though from the uncompromising nature of the tackle depicted and the apparent simplicity of the fish it would scarcely be safe to assume that in Egypt angling arrived at the dignity of becoming an "art." In Europe it took very much longer for the taking of fish to be regarded even as an amusement, and the earliest references to it in the Greek and Latin classics are not very satisfying to the sportsman. There is, however, a passage in the Odyssey (xii. 247) which is of consider able importance, as it shows that fishing with rod and line was well enough understood in early Greece to be used as a popular illustration. It occurs in the well-known scene where Scylla seizes the companions of Odysseus out of the ship and bears them up wards, just as "some fisher on a headland with a long rod" brings small fishes gasping to the shore. Another important, though comparatively late, passage in Greek poetry is the 21st idyll of Theocritus. In this the fisherman Asphalion relates how in a dream he hooked a large golden fish and describes graphically, albeit with some obscurity of language, how' he "played" it. Asphalion used a rod and fished from a rock, much after the manner of the Homeric angler. Among other Greek writers, Herodotus has a good many references to fish and fishing; the capture of fish is once or twice mentioned or implied by Plato, notably in the Laws (vii. 823) ; Aristotle deals with fishes in his Natural History; and there are one or two fishing passages in the anthology. But in Greek literature as a whole the subject of angling is not at all prominent. In writers of late Greek, however, there is more material. Plutarch, for instance, gives us the famous story of the fishing match between Antony and Cleopatra, which has been utilized by Shakespeare. Moreover, it is in Greek that the first complete treatise on fishing which has come down to us is written, the Halieutica of Oppian (c. A.D. 169). It is a hexam eter poem in five books with perhaps more technical than sport ing interest, and not so much even of that as the length of the work would suggest. Still it contains some information about tackle and methods, and some passages describing battles with big fish, in the right spirit of enthusiasm. Also in Greek is what is famous as the first reference in literature to fly-fishing, in the book of Aelian's Natural History (3rd century A.D.). It is there described how the Macedonians captured a certain spotted fish in the river Astraeus by means of a lure composed of col oured wool and feathers, which was presumably used in the manner now known as "dapping." That there were other Greek writers who dealt with fish and fishing and composed "halieutics" we know from Athenaeus. In the first book of his Deipnoso pliistae he gives a list of them.

In Latin literature allusions to angling are more numerous than in Greek, but on the whole they are unimportant. Part of a poem by Ovid, the Halieuticon, composed during the poet's exile at Tomi after A.D. 9, still survives. In other Roman writers the subject is treated only by way of allusion or illustration. Martial, however, provides, among other passages, what may per haps be entitled to rank as the earliest notice of private fishery rights—the epigram Ad Piscatorem, which warns would-be poachers from casting a line in the Baian lake. Pliny the elder devoted the ninth book of his Natural History to fishes and water-life, and Plautus, Cicero, Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, Pliny the younger and Suetonius all allude to angling here and there. Agricultural writers, too, such as Varro and Columella, deal with the subject of fish-ponds and stews rather fully. Later than any of these, but still just included in Latin literature, we have Ausonius (c. A.D. 320) and his well-known idyll the Mosella, which contains a good deal about the fish of the Moselle and the methods of catching them.

Post-classical Literature.

Asto what happened in the world of angling in the first few centuries of the Christian era we know little. It may be inferred, however, that both fish and fishermen occupied a more honourable position in Christendom than they ever did before. The prominence of fishermen in the gospel narratives would in itself have been enough to bring this about, but it also happened that the Greek word for fish, IXOTE, had an anagrammatic significance which the devout were not slow to per ceive. The initials of the word resolve into what is practically a confession of faith, X ports e€ 'Ms Eon* (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour) . It is therefore not surprising that we find the fish very prominent as a sacred emblem in the paint ing and sculpture of the primitive church, or that Clement of Alexandria should have recommended it, among other things, as a device for signet rings or seals. The fisherman too is frequently represented in early Christian art, and it is worthy of remark that he more often uses a line and hook than a net. The references to fish and fishing scattered about in the writings of the early fathers for the most part reflect the two ideas of the sacredness of the fish and divine authorization of the fisherman; the second idea certainly prevailed until the time of Izaak Walton, for he uses it to justify his pastime. It is also not unlikely that the practice of fasting (in many cases fish was allowed when meat was forbidden) gave the art of catching fish additional impor tance. It seems at any rate to have been a consideration of weight when sites were chosen for monasteries in Europe, and in many cases when no fish-producing river was at hand the lack was supplied by the construction of fish-ponds. Despite all this, however, save for an occasional allusion in the early fathers, there is hardly a connecting link between the literature of pagan Rome and the literature that sprang up on the invention of printing.

The first printed book on angling (a translation of Oppian, 1478, excepted) was a little volume printed in Antwerp probably in 1492 at the press of Matthias van der Goes. In size it is little more than a pamphlet, and it treats of birds as well as fish: Dit Boecxken leert hoe men mach Voghelen ... ende . . . vissclien vangen metten kanden. Ende oeck ("This book teaches how one may catch birds ... and . . . fish with the hands, and also otherwise.") Only one copy apparently survives, in the Denison library, and a translation privately printed in 1872 was limited to 25 copies. At least two other edi tions of the book appeared in Flemish, and it also made its way, in 1502, to Germany, where, translated and with certain altera tions and additions, it seems to have been re-issued frequently. Next in date comes the famous Treatyse of Fyssliynge wyth an Angle, printed at Westminster by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496 as a part of the second edition of the Boke of St. Albans. The treatise is almost certainly a compilation from some earlier work on angling ("bokes of credence" are mentioned in its text), possibly from a ms. of the earlier part of the 15th century, of which a portion is preserved in the Denison collection. This was published in 1883 by Mr. Thomas Satchell under the title An Older Form of the Treatyse of Fyssjiynge wyth an Angle. But it is also possible that a still older work was the par ent of both books, for it has been held that the ms. is an inde pendent version. However this may be, it is certain that the treatise itself has been the parent of many other works. Many of the instructions contained in it are handed down from genera tion to generation with little change except in diction. Especially is this the case with the list of trout-flies, a meagre 12, which survives in many fishing books until well into the i8th century. From the beginning of the i6th century the fisherman's library begins to grow apace, as, though books solely devoted to fishing are not yet frequent, works on husbandry and country pursuits almost all contain something on the subject. In Italy the fisher man and his occupation apparently were considered poetically; the word pescatore or its cognates are common on Italian i6th and i 7th century title-pages, though in many instances the ful filment of the implied promise is not adequate, from an angler's point of view. From the pages of Bibliotheca Piscatoria a fairly long list of Italian writers could be gleaned. Among them may be mentioned Sannazaro (Piscatoria, etc., Rome, 15 26) and Andrea Calmo (Rime pescatorie, Venice, A century later was Parthenius, who published a volume of Halieutica at Naples. This writer has an amusing reference to the art of "tickling" trout as practised in Britain. In Germany, as has been shown, the original little Flemish treatise had a wide vogue in the i6th cen tury, and fishing played a part in a good many books on hus bandry such as that of Conrad Heresbach (157o). Fish and fish ponds formed the .main topic of a Latin work by Dubravius (1552), while Gesner in the middle of the 16th and Aldrovandi at the beginning of the 17th centuries wrote at length on the natural history of fishes. In France there were editions, now very rare, of the Flemish treatise published at Lyons about 153o, and Les Pescheries of Chris. de Gamon (Lyons, 1599) and Le Plaisir des champs of Cl. Gauchet (Paris, 1604) deserve to be noted. Les Ruses innocentes by Francois Fortin, first published at Paris in 1600, and several times in later editions, is character ized by Messrs. Westwood and Satchell as "on the whole the most interesting contribution made by France to the literature of angling." Modern Literature.—In 1600 appeared John Taverner's Certaine Experiments concerning Fish and Fruite, and after this the period of angling literature proper begins. The Secrets of Angling (1613), by J(ohn) D(ennys), Esq., is one of the most important volumes in the angler's library, both on account of the excellence of the verse in which it is written and also on account of its practical value. Gervase Markham, "the first journalist," as he has been called, published his first book of husbandry at the same date, and, as in most of his many books on the same subject, devoted a certain amount of space to fishing. But Mark ham gathered his materials in a rather shameless manner and his angling passages have little originality. Thomas Barker's The Art of Angling (1st ed., 16 51) takes a more honourable position, and received warm commendation from Izaak Walton himself, who followed it in 1653 with The Compleat Angler. So much has been written about this treasured classic that it is only necessary to indicate its popularity here by saying that its editions occupy some 20 pages in Bibliotheca Piscatoria (1883), and that since that work was published at least 4o new editions have to be added to the list. During Walton's life-time the book ran through five editions, and with the fifth (1676) was incorporated Charles Cot ton's second part, the "instructions how to angle for a trout or grayling, in a clear stream." In some cases too there was added a third book, the fourth edition of The Experienced Angler, by Robert Venables (1st ed., 1662). The three books together bore the title of The Universal Angler.

A few other notable books of the century call for enumeration, The Gentleman's Recreation by Nicholas Cox (1674), Gilbert's The Angler's Delight (1676), Chetham's Vade-Mecum (1681), The Complete Troller by Robert Nobbes (1682), R. Franck's Northern Memoirs (1694), and The True Art of Angling by J. S. (1696). Of these Chetham, Nobbes, Franck and J. S. have the merit of considerable originality. Franck has gained some notori ety by his round abuse of Walton. In the i8th century among others we find The Secrets of Angling by C. G. (17o5), Robert Howlett's The Angler's Sure Guide (1706), The Whole Art of Fishing (1714), The Compleat Fisherman by James Saunders (1724), The Art of Angling by R. Brookes (174o), another book with the same title by R. and C. Bowlker (Worcester, c. 175o), The Complete Sportsman by Thomas Fairfax (c. 176o), The Angler's Museum by T. Shirley (1784), and A Concise Treatise on the Art of Angling by Thomas Best (1787). Of these only Saunders', Bowlkers' and Best's books are of much importance, the rest being for the most part "borrowed." One volume of verse in the i8th century calls for notice, Moses Browne's Piscatory Eclogues (1729).

With the 19th century angling literature becomes too big a sub ject to be treated in detail, and it is only possible to glance at a few of the more important books and writers. Daniel's Rural Sports appeared in 18o1; it is a treasure-house of odd facts. In 1828 Sir Humphry Davy published his famous Salmonia, which was reviewed in the Quarterly by Sir Walter Scott. At about this time too were appearing the "Noctes Ambrosianae" in Black wood's Magazine. Christopher North (Prof. Wilson) often touched upon angling in them, besides contributing a good many angling articles to the magazine. In 1835 that excellent angling writer Thomas Tod Stoddart began his valuable series of books with The Art of Angling as Practised in Scotland. In 1839 he published Songs and Poems, among which are pieces of great merit. During this period, too, first appeared, year by year, the Newcastle Fishers' Garlands, collected by Joseph Crawhall after wards and republished in 1864. These border verses, like Stod dart's, have often a genuine ring about them which is missing from the more polished effusions of Gay and Thomson. Alfred Ronalds's The Fly-Fisher's Entomology (1st ed., 1836) was a publication of great importance, for it marked the beginning of the scientific spirit among trout-fishers. It ran through many editions and is still a valuable book of reference. A step in angling history is also marked by George Pulman's Vade Mecum of Fly fishing for Trout (1841), for it contains the first definite instruc tions on fishing with a "dry fly." Another is marked by Hewett Wheatley's The Rod and the Line (1849), where is to be found the earliest reference to the "eyed" hook. Yet another is marked by W. C. Stewart's The Practical Angler (18J7), in which is taught the new doctrine of "up-stream" fishing for trout. This is a book of permanent value. Among the many books of this period Charles Kingsley's Miscellanies (18S9) stands out, for it con tains the immortal "Chalk-Stream Studies." The work of Francis Francis begins at about the same time, though his A Book on Angling, which is still one of the most valuable text-books, was not first published till 1867. Among other English writers worthy of mention were William Senior, John Bickerdyke and F. M. Halford. (See further bibliography ad fin.) . In America the latter half of the 19th century produced a good deal of fish ing literature, much of it of a high standard. 1 go a-Fishing by Dr. W. C. Prime (1873), Fishing with the Fly by C. F. Orvis, A Nelson Cheney and others (1883), The American Salmon Fisherman and Fly Rods and Fly Tackle by H. P. Wells, Little Rivers and other books by the Rev. H. Van Dyke—these are only a few specially distinguished in style and matter. Ger many and France have not contributed so largely to the modern library, but in the first country we find several useful works by Max von dem Borne, beginning with the Handbuch der Angel fischerei of 1875, and there are a good many other writers who have contributed to the subject, while in France there are a few volumes on fishing by different hands. The most noticeable is M. G. Albert Petit's La Truite de riviere (1897), an admirable book on fly-fishing.

During the present century the output of angling books has been too great for more than a selected list to be attempted, which will be found in the bibliography below, but mention may just be made here of one or two outstanding volumes that have appeared. There is, first of all, Mr. William Radcliffe's Fishing from the Earliest Tines (2nd ed. 1926), in which the author has collected a mass of references to angling dating from cave frescoes, and implements of the stone age, through the dawn of history, down to about A.D. 500 and discusses the allusions to fishing in classi cal literature, on Egyptian monuments and Chinese records, and is the only attempt as yet made to compile a complete historical record of the sport. In 1907 Mr. W. L. Calderwood, the inspector of fisheries for Scotland, published his The Life of the Salmon, which is perhaps the most authoritative work on the knowledge of the salmon which modern scientific research has produced. Mr. Martin E. Mosely published The Dry Fly Fisherman's Entomology in 1921, a continuation of Mr. Halford's works on the same subject; Mr. G. E. M. Skues has produced Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream (3rd ed. 1924) and The of a Trout with a Fly, which describe, in effect, a method of applying to the wet fly the scientific knowledge on which dry-fly fishing is founded. A Bibliography of Fishes by Bashford Dean and others published by the American Museum of Natural History was completed in three volumes in 1923, and is the biggest work of its kind ever undertaken. In France a notable contribution to fishing literature is Lt.-Col. Vavon's La Truite: ses moeurs: L'Art de Pecker, which appeared in a limited edition in 1927. In it the author has collected the modern knowledge of the life history, structure and habits of the trout, and presents his recommenda tions for methods of capture as a logical deduction from its past history and propensities. Though it does not provide any really new information it is one of the most important books on fishing which France has yet produced.

Modern Conditions.

In the modern history of angling there are one or two features that should be touched upon. A dis covery in the natural history of the salmon by H. W. Johnson (The Field, Oct. 29, 1904) following on the work of the 17th century Dutch naturalist, Leeuwenhoeck, that the age and past history of a fish can be read on its scales, has enormously in creased our knowledge of the life history of migratory salmonidae. Briefly, the discovery was that a fish, without adding to the num ber of its scales, accommodates its increasing size by adding layers to them, each layer on completion turning up slightly at its edge and thus forming a series of ridges which can easily be seen under a low-powered microscope. In summer when food is plentiful the rings thus formed are wide, while in winter owing to the comparative scarcity of food, and probably to the extra amount of nourishment absorbed in maintaining bodily warmth, the resulting rings are narrow. Thus a salmon's scale shows a series of wide rings (summer zone) followed by a series of nar row rings (winter band) the two together forming one year in the fish's life. When a salmon enters a river for the purpose of spawning and loses condition, the edge of the scale (the greater part of which is embedded in the skin) is absorbed, and the outermost rings disappear. When scale formation starts again on recovery from spawning these rings are not replaced but new ones are laid down, the rough broken edges of the rings which have disappeared forming an uneven dark mark round the scale known as the "spawning mark." The information gained by reading the scales, supplemented by additional information from marking fish (with a metal label or similar device) and returning them to the water, has profoundly modified our ideas of the life of the sal mon. Grilse (immature salmon) at one time regarded as a sep arate species, and later believed to be fish which had spent only a few months in the sea, is now the name given to salmon which have spent only one year (none spend less) and a 'few months in the sea before returning to fresh water. It has also been shown that the length of a salmon's "parr" life in fresh water has a con siderable effect on the length of its sojourn in the sea, the rule being, roughly, that the longer a parr takes in growing to the smolt stage before migration the shorter will be its stay in salt water and the greater likelihood of its return to the river as a grilse instead of a larger and more profitable "spring" or "sum mer" fish (fish which have spent two or more years in the sea) . It is now known, too, that very few fish return to spawn a second time, while a fish which has f our or more spawning marks on its scales is worth recording as a phenomenal capture. Knowl edge of sea trout, though increasing rapidly, has not kept pace with the knowledge of salmon, but the method of reading their scales is the same, though the interpretation of them is more dif ficult, owing to their habit of returning to fresh water for pur poses other than spawning. Attempts have also been made to apply the same system to fresh-water fish other than the salmon family, but though some progress has been made it is not yet pos sible to interpret their rings with the same accuracy as with sal mon and trout. All European trout, whether "sea," "brown" or any of the numerous variations that used to be listed as sub species are now regarded as one and the same species (S. trutta) there being no discoverable structural difference, according to the latest scientific investigations. Trout varying in colour owing to quality of food, water, or other local conditions are regarded simply as "strains" of the same species.

The great increase in the number of fishermen has had several results. One is a corresponding increase in the difficulty of obtain ing fishing, and a notable rise in the value of rivers, especially those which are famed for salmon and trout. Salmon-fishing now may be said to have become a pastime of the rich, and there are signs that trout-fishing will before long have to be placed in the same exclusive category, while even the right to angle for less esteemed fish will eventually be a thing of price. The development is natural, and it has naturally led to efforts on the part of the angling majority to counteract, if possible, the growing difficulty. These efforts have been directed chiefly in two ways, one the establishment of fishing clubs, the other the adoption of angling in salt water. The fishing club of the big towns was originally a social institution, and its members met together to sup, converse on angling topics and perhaps to display notable fish that they had caught. Later, however, arose the idea that it would be a con venience if a club could give its members privileges of fishing as well as privileges of reunion. So it comes about that all over the United Kingdom, in British colonies and dependencies, in the United States, and various countries of Europe, fishing clubs rent waters, undertake preservation and restocking and generally lead an active and useful existence. It is a good sign for the future of angling and anglers that they are rapidly increasing in number. One of the oldest fishing clubs, if not the oldest, was the Schuylkill club, founded in Pennsylvania in 1732. An account of its history was published in Philadelphia in 183o. Among the earliest clubs in London are to be numbered such societies as The True Wal tonians, The Piscatorial, The Friendly Anglers and The Gresham, which are still flourishing. A certain amount of literary activity has been observable in the world of angling clubs, and several volumes of "papers" are on the records. Most noticeable perhaps are the three volumes of Anglers' Evenings published in i 88o 94, a collection of essays by members of the Manchester Anglers' association. The other method of securing a continuance of sport, the adoption of sea-angling as a substitute for fresh-water fishing, is quite a modern thing. Within the memory of men still young the old tactics of hand-line and force were considered good enough for sea fish. Now the fresh-water angler has lent his centuries of experience in deluding his quarry; the sea-angler has adopted many of the ideas presented to him, has modified or improved others, and has developed the capture of sea-fish into a science almost as subtle as the capture of their fresh-water cousins.

During the last few years a greater development still has taken place in the capture of exceptionally large fish—sharks, sword fish, tuna, etc.—running up to weights of several hundred pounds and now known under the name of big-game fishing. This fishing was first inaugurated as a separate branch- of the sport by the Tuna club of Santa Catalina. The discovery of tuna grounds on the coast of Nova Scotia, where subsequently Mr. Zane Grey took the record tuna, weighing 758 lb., with rod and line, widened the geographical scope of the fishing, since when the north shore of the northern island of New Zealand has provided some won derful takes of "marlin" and "broadbill" swordfish, and Mako shark, and is now by way of being the most notable big-game fishing ground in the world. It is probable that the neighbourhood of Hongkong and off the east coast of Japan will also develop into fishing centres for the sport, since some of the species in the New Zealand coastal currents are known to be present in these waters also. The spawning grounds of tuna are in the Mediter ranean, but since, like many other fish, they seem to cease feed ing on the approach of the spawning season, rod and line fishing there is little developed, but they have been caught at times in the North sea and a capture (August 1927) of large tuna (over Soo lb.) by Danish anglers in the Kattegat, off the coast of Den mark, is an indication that this fishing may be within reach of British coasts. Up to the present, however, British • anglers regard the conger, skate, halibut and tope (Galeus vulgaris), a small species of shark, allied to the dogfishes, as the "big-game" of home waters. Several important fresh-water species have also become a later part of angling enterprise, notably the dorado of South American rivers, the "Euphrates salmon" of the Euphrates watershed, a fish resembling the mahseer in character but reaching much greater weights, and the Nile perch and tiger fish of the big African rivers. One more modern feature, which is also a result of the increase of anglers, is the great advance made in fish-culture, fish-stocking and fish-acclimatization during the last half-century. Fish-culture is now a recognized industry; every trout-stream of note and value is restocked from time to time as a matter of course ; salmon-hatcheries are numerous, though their practical utility is still a debated matter, in Great Britain at any rate ; coarse fish are also bred for purposes of re stocking ; and, lastly, it is now considered a fairly simple matter to introduce fish from one country to another, and even from continent to continent. In England the movement owes a great deal to Francis Francis, who, though he was not the earliest worker in the field, was among the first to formulate the science of fish-breeding; his book Fish-Culture, first published in 1863, still remains one of the best treatises on the subject. In the United States, where fishery science has had the benefit of gener ous governmental and official support and countenance and so has reached a high level of achievement, Dr. T. Garlick (The Artificial Reproduction of Fishes, Cleveland, 185 7) is honoured as a pioneer. On the continent of Europe the latter half of the i gth century saw a very considerable and rapid development in fish culture, but until comparatively recently the propagation and care of fish in most European waters have been considered almost entirely from the point of view of the fish-stew and the market. As to what has been done in the way of acclimatization it is not necessary to say much. Trout (Salmo fario) were introduced to New Zealand in the late '6os from England; in the '8os rainbow trout (S. irideus) were also introduced from California; now New Zealand provides the finest trout-fishing of its kind in the world. The quinnat salmon from the Pacific coast of North America and the Atlantic salmon (S. salar) from European waters have also been acclimatized in New Zealand, but whereas the quinnat has adopted the life habit of its original home, the Atlantic salmon has shown peculiarities of behaviour and development that have for some time puzzled both anglers and scientists. The earlier at tempts to introduce it were failures, possibly on account of the comparatively high temperature of the coastal waters as compared with the original habitat in the northern hemisphere ; but the more recent attempts in the early years of the present century in Lake Te Anau and the river Waiau in the south island have produced a considerable stock of fish, which are evidently spawn ing in those waters and may be considered, from that point of view, to have acclimatized themselves. They, however, show several peculiarities which differentiate them from the S. salar of Europe. The first and most noticeable is the fact that mature fish feed regularly in fresh water, even when approaching the spawning period, a habit unknown among sea-going salar, either in Europe or America. Although they descend to tidal water no specimen has, as yet, been caught in the sea out of reach of tidal influence. Their size, considering their age, is small, the largest fish re corded being little more than 20 ib. and the majority even of the larger fish running from 12 lb. to 14 lb. An examination of their scales shows that they give no sign of the customary wide zones denoting rich sea-feeding, but that, on the contrary, the arrange ment of the rings bears a strong resemblance to the landlocked salar of North America. It is considered by Tate Regan, W. L. Calderwood, Arthur Hutton and other authorities (Salmon and Trout Magazine, July 1927), that these fish have adopted a fresh water habit, and have become, in effect, voluntarily landlocked. The quinnat, on the other hand, seem to have the same sea-going habit as the fish of American waters. American trout of different kinds have been introduced into England, and brown trout have been introduced into America; but neither innovation can be said to have been an unqualified success, though the rainbow has established itself firmly in some waters of the United Kingdom.

It is still regarded with some suspicion, as it has a tendency to wander from waters which do not altogether suit it. For the rest, trout have been established in Ceylon, in Kashmir, in South Africa (where carp have also been introduced with very sur prising results, being now regarded almost as a nuisance), and in British Central Africa. In fact the possibilities of acclimatiza tion are so great that it seems probable that in time no river of the civilized world capable of holding trout will be without them.