The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-05-20 00:00:00

THE FISH DEPARTMENT IN THE
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

The following interesting description of the 1,1.,h depart.
moot of the Intern:4lmeg Exhibition, la by iwitter in the
pasty News :

The cultivation of fish, like the invention of gun.
powder, is said to have originated with the unciviliz,d
Chinese. Tee Celestials kept whole flocks and herds
of bream or mullet in pally fields inundated for the
purpose, and had regular arrangements made for the
proper spawi.ing and hatching of the fry. In the
Roman days the fish ponds of Luandlus, when put up
for sale, brought a sum equal to £30,000 of our money.
The classical gourmet had canals from the sea to his
villa at Tusculum. In England, when Lent was Lent,
and monks were different from the peripatetic friars
of Llanthony Abbey, the holy men used to nourish fat
carp for the refectory in artifiLiod pools set in the green
lawns which surrounded the snug and pleasant
monasteries. _

The promoters of se ierce and art at the Exhibition
have allotted MI of their numerous chamber, to
a gentleman who has studied with devotion the
venerable pursuit of bringing up fish by hand.
Pawing through a aeries of rooms we come to a
building the walls of which are covered with plaster
oasts of every variety of fish in all aorta of stages and
conditions. The grim monsters have a peculiarly
dead look, but their points and shapes are reproduced
with anatomical exactitude. Curious reflections will
al ice if you think of these creatures sailing over the
mountains of the .3, peering with big eyes amongst
the giant temples of weed, sliding through the broken
cebine of sunken vessels, hovering as mute and still as
hawks; in the air when the upper waters are troubled
by the rage of the storm, living much in the dark,
silent, always shifting their quarters by stress of
blind irepalsee, a speechless multitude. Many were
such forms as could only be imagined in a dream after
lobster supper. See that "Arctic chimera," for in-
stance, distorted, unshapely, and note the hideous maw
of that shark, a vast trap, a cavernous receptacle for
sailors or tnateh.boxes, or anything that will turn up.
It is with a certain feeling of discomfort that one learns
that this shark was found cruieing during the bathing
seamen in the neighbourhord of Folkestone. Then we
have the "sail fluke," a turbo'. huge as a rifle challenge
shield, and a baby porpoise. The latter resembles a
sticking pig, and possesses that expreseion of sly though
defunct innocence which may be observed through the
lids of the butchered tender porker. A giant seal from
Galway is couched on a slab, a seal worthy of doing
battle with hector of the "Antiquary." The brute
weighs no leas than 1321b5. The sun fish over there was
alma discovered at Folkestone. A lady dog fish with
a family of thirteen little pope is exhibited with an
artistic emphasis of arrangement, which imparts to the
group a Landscer force of humour. Quaintest object
of all is the anii r fish. This sins ular creature
is prowled with an apparatus for attracting his
brethren, so that he may more conveniently catch and
eat them. Hie practiee is to descend to the bottom
ard cover himself lightly with sand or slime. Out of
hie ewe, or near what rnight have been his nese if he
bach not been born a fhb, there spring 'several long fila-
ments. The angler moves them to and fro, and when
his friends approach to see what they are, he darts up
and seizes the surprised vi time. That electric ray wars
found off Cornwall. Mr. Buckland (who has cast
every one of the specimens with his own hands) has
given us an opportunity of studying the interior
economy, of the ray, specially indicating the mechanism
by which it can perform slue Its from a private battery.
We note another ray who, like the wasp er the epigr im,
wears a sting in his toil. Did our read, rs know that
the bottle-nosed whale frequented the Holyhead break-
water ? The bulky representative of the species in the
corner was found on tbe route of the Irish mail packets.
- • - _ _ _

Here me models of every celebrated stallion that has
arrived in London for the heat five years. Each
reumon telibrc has a distinctive national individuality.
Tbe Dutch salmon is not, contrary to expectation, of
a burgomaster build. He le neither ae rotund or an
broaehbeamed an might have been thought. For eyte.-
metrical beauty and plumpnese we Omuta give the
palm to yonder native of the Shabnon. The fieh ip
indeed a beauty. The (welter Callen diPplay the mollusc
from an age when you can only see him with a mice..
'cope to the period of the year of hie discretion, when
he attaches himself to a broken champagne bottle, or
to a piece of the wreck of the Royal George. The
oyster is eccentric in holding on to fragments of willow
pattern plates, broken tobacco pipte, Roman pottery,
the dismembered leg 4 of crabs ' anything that he
drift,. towards. The cases are carefully tabulated, and
are valuable sources of information to those jute.
res!ed In oyetPr culture. Them oblong boxes, with ft
tinkling chiming constant water muPic playing inside
them are the homes for the young salmon and trout.

Mr. Dockland is assisted in supporting his delicate
protegiis by two "wet" nurses, Neville and Serie, who
take the greatest care and trouble with the little ones.
Opening one of the boxes we see a big swarm of
pellucid fry darting to and fro like shrimps. There is
a saucer of food for them in the centre of the mimic
lekelet which is strewn with fine gravel. In the
box below this we find the fry larger and so on,
both salmon and trout, until they arrive at the
dignity of an inch or more. They appear to he
in the best health and spirits. Mr. Dockland from
time to time sends off the strongest of his fish.
babies by night trains, nod has them let loose into
rivars where he hopes they will grow and prosper.
Hitherto the experiment, as far an the Thome. is eon.
corned, has no; been very succoviful, but Mr. Ituckland
thinks he has recognised trout of his own raising in our
river. A glom-case furnished like a fernery affords a
practical illustration of a system of salmon ladders. At
the visitor'd request Neville scoops up a shoal of min-
nows—gently as though he loved them -and places
' them in the lower pool of the case. In an instant
they are all struggling as if for dear life, to climb the
ladder over which the water is trickling, in order to
get back to the spot from which they are taken. Why
they do this Mr. Dockland does not quite understand.

In a big tank outside the window, a gloomy tank
enough, a suicidal water-butt tarn such as people are
found drowned in occasionally with their boots dry—
the flowers of the flab flock are gathered together. Mr.
Neville, from long observation, has discovered a peculiar
confection ter which a salmon is ready to jump out of
his element. This mysterious compound Mr. Neville
carries with him and throwing a small morsel into the
tank the fish rush and tumble and splash for it with an
alacrity which affords undeniable evidence of the sound
hygienic conditions to which they are subjected. But
we must say that considering the beauty of its inmates,
and the trouble it has been to rear them, their home is
very shabby, mean, and dull. The solemn pike who
used to reside in the room had a much better time of
it. His cage was furnished with gudgeon, roach, chubb,
and stickback, and he devoured any one of them
when he had a mind. Neville remarked that
he was of a partial turn. Those that manag--d to Bur.
vive his appetite for a short time he generally left un-
molested altogether; but when a stranger was put in
the pike had a habit of tasting him on the spur of the
moment. Some months since a fat carp WWI placed in his
den. The pike received him with open mouth, but, as if
something had struck him before it was too ice, he
sent the carp back again very little the worse for his
reception. For three weeks the carp roamed freely
around the rremiaes, when one fine morning the pike
slowly steered towarde him, and made an end of him in
a single bolt. Unfortunately, however, the very day
the Exhibition opened the pike committed suicide. He
could scarce be said to have been found drowned, but
the top of his head was broken as if he had bumped
it against hisgaol wall during the night. His death is
a marked loss to the collection, for there was a great
deal of individual character in the pike.
The articles in this department would require much
more space than is here ozcupied to give even an
adequate list of them. They certainly testify to the
intelligence and industry of the curator, Mr. Buck.
laud, and there is no doubt that if the department
were properly and duly encouraged, it would tend
towards the development of a most imptatant in-
dustrial resource.