The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-25 00:00:00

SALMON BREEDING ON THE BITER

TA Y.

Incited, no doubt, by the success which had at.
tended the artificial fish-breeding operations carried
on so extensively on the Continent, the proprietors
of the salmon fisheries on the River Tay resolved
to construct near Perth, on the property of Lord
Mansfield, who kindly granted a site for that pur-
pose, a depot for the cultivation of pisciculture.
The more immediate inducements to attempt ope-
rations in artificial fish-breeding were undoubtedly
the increasing scarcity of fish and a falling rental,
caused in some degree, we are led to believe, by
over-fishing and the unprotected state of the water.
It was well known that the rivers of France, the
whole of which had. become of less value than the
Tay, had been re-peopled, and rendered of great
value to the nation by the artificial system, and also
that a grand central piscicultural establishment or
laboratory, covering about 70 acres of ground, had
been erected and carried on with great success at
Huningue, near Basle, to serve as a depot for the dis-
tribution of ova to exhausted rivers. In Ireland,
too, pisciculture had been successfully established
at Oughterard, by Mr. Ashworth, of Egerton-hall,
Bolton, who purchased the salmon fisheries of
Lough Corrib from the Encumbered Estates Court.
He and his brother began the system in December,
1852. At the National Exhibition, in Dublin, the
Messrs. Ashworth exhibited salmon (artificially
hatched) three months old. Some one or two
experiments have also been tried at other places,
but more from fancy than with a view to commer-
cial purposes.
One principal cause for the practice of piscicul-
ture is the certainty of affording efficient protection
to the spawn during the period of hatching, and
also of allowing the shoal of young fry to attain to
something like "months of discretion" before it
proceeds on its first grand tour. The ova, or
roe of the salmon, affords food to a great many
of the smaller fishes of our large rivers—
it is eaten with avidity by the pike and
trout, and gobbled up in large quantities by
ducks and other waterfowl. A whitling of about
three-quarters of a pound in weight, has been taken
with 300 impregnated salmon ova in his stomach !
If this fish had been allowed to dine and breakfast

at this rate during the whole of the spawning sea-
son it would have been difficult to estimate the loss
to our fisheries sustained by his voracity. The
alluvial matter deposited in times of flood often
smothers the ova, even when it is hatched under
such circumstances, and frequent "spates" sweep
away whole spawning beds, to the certain de-
struction of the great mass of the roe. The young
fry suffer also. Thousands are killed annually as
well by the larger fishes of their own species as
by the juvenile angler who, with a short stick and
a crooked pin, does rapid execution. A very small
per tentage of the ova, therefore (considering how
prolific"all fishes are), when left in its natural state,
ever comes the length of being hatched, and few
out of those which struggle into existence ever
reach our tables in the marketable state of grilse or
salmon. Out of the myriads of eggs deposited by
the female fish-1,000 to each pound she weighs—
it is thought by some naturalists that about five of
the eggs in every thousand will, on the average,
attain to grilsehood, and two out of the five may
become a full-grown salmon. At the period of the
migration of the smolts to the sea, shoals of them
are devoured by the hordes of marine creatures who,
with unerring instinct, are laying in wait for them.
The Tay breeding ponds are situated at Colin-
haugh, better known, however, as Stormontfield,
distant about five miles from Perth, and of easy
access by the public road, and also by railway; but
this latter route involves a journey of about a mile
and a half over byeways and through fields, as well
as the trouble of crossing the river Shochey, and,
after all, the traveller arrives on the wrong side of
the Tay, and requires to hail Peter Marshall, the
guardian of the place, in order to be ferried
over. The breeding ponds were constructed
from designs by Mr. Peter Brown, Perth,
and are said to answer admirably all the
purposes connected with the artificial sys-
tem of salmon breeding. They are not
of very great extent, accommodation for
300 breeding boxes having only as yet been
provided, but they are situated on a well•selected
spot, protected by a sheltering plantation of well-
grown trees. The water supply is derived from a
rapid mill stream which runs parallel with the Tay.
A large reservoir is kept filled with water from this
stream, which is ultimately filtered into a kind of
ditch, or canal, at the head of the bed containing
the range of boxes filled with gravel, on which is
placed the impregnated salmon roe. From this
ditch the water is laid on to the boxes, and grad-
ually makes its way from one to the other down the
gentle slope on which they are placed, flowing on
in a constant, unvarying stream into a receiving
canal, or dam, from whence it is conducted into
another reservoir, about a quarter of an acre in ex-
tent, which acts likewise as a receiving pond for the
young fish. The superfluous water is let into the Tay
by means of a narrow canal, which also in its turn
serves as a roadway for the smolts when the time
comes for their departure from the ponds: The 300
boxes at this establishment, when filled with gravel,
afford room for the hatching of about half a million
of salmon, but only 300,000 were experimented on
in the first season, commencing in November, 1853.
The operation of obtaining and preparing the
ova for the first experiment was intrusted to Mr.
Ramsbottom, who is an adept in the art of pisci-
tulture, and his own description of the mode of
shedding the spawn and the manner of impreg-
nating it is as follows:
" So soon as a pair a suitable fish were captured the ova
of the female were immediately discharged into a tub one-
fourth full of water, by a gentle pressure of the hands
from the thorax downwards. The milt of the male was
ejected in a similar manner, and the contents of the tub '
stirred with the hand. After the lapse of a minute
the water was poured off, with the exception of
sufficient to keep the ova submerged, and fresh water
supplied in its place. This also was poured off, and
fresh substituted, previous to removing the impregnated
spawn to the boxes prepared for its reception. The ova'
was placed in the boxes as nearly similar to what they would
be under the ordinary course of natural deposition as possi-
ble, with however, this advantage; in the bed of the liver
the ova are liable to injury and destruction in a variety of
ways, while, deposited in boxes, they are shielded from in-
jury, and their vivification in large numbers is thus ren-
dered a matter of certainty, and the young fish reared in
safety."

Mr. Ramsbottom expressed his opinion that the
Tay was one of the finest breeding streams in the
world, and that it would be presumptive to limit
the number of salmon that might be raised there
were the river cultivated up to its capabilities. The
ova required for the boxes was all got from fish
taken from one little spawning bed just below
Scone Palace.

After the deposition of the ova at the Stor-
montfield ponds, much anxiety was, of course,
evinced during the winter as to the likelihood
of a favourable result. All doubts on this point
were set at rest in the ensuing spring, for on the
31st of March, 1854, the first egg or ovum was
observed to be hatched, and all the other eggs came
safely to life in the course of April or May. In the
month of June, the fry were transferred from the
boxes to the pond, and at that date their average
size was about an inch and a -half in length, with
a corresponding degree of breadth. After being
placed in the reception pond, the young fry were
fed every day with grated liver. They grew apace,
remaining in a healthy state throughout the winter,
which was a very severe one ; and, in the course of
the first year they attainell to ft length of four