The Sun.
London, England, 1801-08-03 00:00:00

I 6

The following are the means propostid to Le employed far
multiptying Isl Fish ;by C. 0ut.4.., Member of the fury of
• • lnst maim at Rotten:
-1" We have already had instances of fish being
oonveytd from one river W another, or from a river
to a lake, and (vice versa. This method has been
employed with success in Germany in regard to the
Shad, with which, ponds and pieces_ of stagnant but
clear water, with a bottom. Of 'sand and gravel, tire-
ferred by the Shad to all others, have been peopled.
in the year 1779, Dr. Bloch wrote me. from Berlin
that this experiment had been attended with corns
pleie success. It is not above fifty years ago that
Mr. Copland* - conveyed Perch into the. Ken-loch
and the river Urr, where they have, thriven re.•
markably. well ; as has been the case with the Trout
taken from the river Leven ant! deposited in Loch
Long, in the County of Renfrew. The Carp,-which
is, a fish peculiar to warm climates., has been sue-
cessively introduced into the rivers and ponds of
,Prussia, Denmark, and England. Linnwits• says
. .positively that this fish formerly was not known in
SC'veden ; •and in my opinion it is still unknown in
Livonia, Unless it has been conveyed thither.within
, these few years. The fresh-water
.Gouratui in the
Is'le of France, where it has multiplied 'prodigiously,
-came originally from Bengal. It was M. Poittre,
that philosophic Administrator; vho had the hopour
of enriching the risers .of this island with a fish
which in gookUess and shape may be Compared,to
:this Shad- That small fish, ''the brilliant sold and
silver colours of 'which all -"admire, the'. Chinese
Dorado, was brought to Europe from the Northern
part of China.. If so much' was done for a useless
fish,- valued merely on- account of its shining. robe,
by. making it traverse the seas "to embellish, in corn.
• pliance with fashion; our halls and our cabinets-, why'.
should. yae. .nut do-the same. to ebtain fish useful to
-man, .whirls; would recompense our trouoles and our
.sacrifices.?..The RotnanS, sated with viClories and
triumphs, received from tributary . Asia the rarest
species of fish to make a figitre • on, their tables at
their. feasts., What the Romans did for the luxury
of the iich, let us .do for. the general good, for the
utility of the poor e and let uscliStribute ty every
river in France the beneficent. germs of a new fee
cundity, which
,will double their prodationa and:
their produce.' , •
•
" Our risers ct. 6 not cit•tt m more than about
twenty indigenous species4eds sonse migratortt
fiches, .steltie,:h at certain -OeriOds of the year ascend :I
. to a certain distaire from their montlis,or, Bite the
Salmon-, swim towards ela4rSources as' fareaithey
can. The small jivers 15t s s stitl fewer species
the greatest part eeen are, confined to the. Tench,
the Trout, Eelerand some smaller fish oflittle.value.
'How advantageous would be to :introduce into
these rivers a multitude of foreign fish, which in'
these waters would find aliment moreageeeable to
--their taste, and which would enjoy a temperature as
- analogous to their wants as favourable to their re.
'`produCtion ?
" The Seine, which I shall take as an example,
nourishes many species of -Saltnon. and Cypeini ;
but howemany other ,fish :of the same kind, might
bepeopagated in it If the Seine .possesses the Sal-
mon, it wants the Thyniallus, the Umber • Of Au-
`yetne, the Lavaret, the Morena of -GerMany, the
Grilse. of. Scotland,, the Pala of Swisserland, •the
Ferra of the lake of Gene valkc. Why should not
the Carpi.° of the Lake di.-GUarda, the Sekscaez-
riseee (Charri of the lakes of Berchstoldgaclen, an
excellent kind of Salmon, highly ptaised by Baron
de Moll, a Naturalist of .SaTzbourg,, succeed in
. France, if that bottornewhich they are most attach-.
ed 'to, were procured for them, at the foot of the
Ardennes or the Vosgues ? why tu_iOt they -not
. be .afterwards gradually -;introduced in our small
rivers ?. Can it be believed that
~the numerous
tribe of the Trout, . kind, the white,- red; black,
yellow; 'spotted.; the Whirling, charr, Bull, Phin.
floe, Par, Spariing,.&c. which swarm in the rivers
in Scotland, would -refuse .to ,supply: our Colonies
with their species ? . No. , There Can be no doubt
that they would bring thither that fecundity,
abundance, and riches, -which _ render them so valu.
able in their native streams,. ,The case -would be,
the same with the il.ssi/e/iss anti, Hug/nigs ofrered.
to us by time lakes of, Switzerlisnd the*Gudgeon,
the Cyprinus Ballarus,and the SalmteUmbla, bred
in the rivers 'of .Lower Germany. Lei us- open,
then, \vith these coontries, a pehilosok;hicai and libe_
ral exchmfge of the best fish of France for those of
which:we wish to be possessed.
• .
" The second method of multtimlying the number
'and quantity of -the natural prod'udions -of rivers,
, would be, as already,said, torconvey into the-fresh
waters, those fish produced in salt water." -
" Fish, originally.protinced in salt water, have vo_
lontarily established themselves in fresh, where they
have lost all remembrance of the tumuli-of the waves
amidst -which those of their species play anti sport.
Several lakes of
.Scotland possess Salmon, which,
abandoning their erratic taste for a. calm and settled
life,;have „there become gradually natuialiZed. The
Salmon. of the Rivers Cluden.and Nith, asewell as
those of the Dee,. are evidently indigenous, as is
'proved by their external forme The Sturgeon, the
Sterlet, and clifferent kinds of Salmon, which Pal-
las observed it: the Kama, reside there, according
to this Naturalist, without interruption, and never
descend to the Caspian Sea.. This celebrated travel-
ler found the Sea-dog in the Lake Baikal, though it
is never caught in the -Enissei nor in the Lower
Angora. He seippose, indeed,.that it has been
conveyed into that Jake in consequence of some cOn-
siderable variation in the level of the globe, or' by
some other emraordinary event. On one hind, we
see the.Faudee, -a salt water fish, inhabit at present
The Seine, and lose itself in the banks, of Tournidos,
twenty.four miles above ins
: on the, other,
Liancourt found the Herring in the enk, Potow-*
mack, Hudson's:River, and the Delaware, Rivers of
N'crth America e and,' according to Twiss, the
same fish is caught in the fresh water lakes of 'lre-
- land : it is foundin prodigious shoals in the-basons
of Loch-Lomond and Loch-Eck; in _Scotland ; it

Mr. Copland of Colliestoii,—Edir.