Show curious discovery tiie the artificial production of fish it may not be generally known that the weans means of producing fish to an incalculable extent in lakes and rivers have been discovered and have within the last three years been employed on a grand scale and with extraordinary success in different parts of france some years ago two fishermen by the name of gehin and remy of la bresse in the department of the found that from various causes the stock of trout for which the rivers rivera and lakes of that de department p artmont are famous greatly declined and t they hey attentively studied the habits of the male and an d female trout at spawning time with a view if possible of discovering the means of checking the evil after long and patient observation they found foun that not one in a hundred of the ego eggs za 8 deposited bythe by the female in the beds of the rivers and fecund ed by the milt of the male came to maturity the rest being 0 devoured by other fish washed d way or destroyed by mud they found also that of the fish which whid had become excluded or hatched the greater part were destroyed by the larger fish of their own or different species it then struck them t that t if they were to collect the eggs it and apply the milt mil t themselves instead of leaving the fish to do it and afterward to r secure the young fish from the voracity of the larger one oce they would in the course of a few years obtain an inexhaustible inex haus tible supply accordingly they seized a female trout just as they perceived she was about to spawn and by pressure on her belly caused b her e r to deposit her eggs in in a ve vessel asel containing fresh water they afterward took a male and by pressing his belly in the same w way 1 1 caused his milt to spurt on the eggs it is by y pressure on the belly that the female and male always relieve themselves at spawning time these two men then in imitation of the fi fish sh placed the eggs on a layer of gravel which theah they d deposited in a box full of holes this box they 3 y fixed in a bed of a flowing i r stream and covered it with pebbles the fish themselves in the natural way cover the eggs with pebbles and then leave them in due time ilme the eggs excluded and almost every one was found to be good they thus obtained from one female several hundred fish they took precautions for keeping the little creatures in water where they were out of danger and supplying them with fitting food applying this operation the year after to a great number of fish they obtained several trout and in a year or two more the numbers had literally lite literally rall y increased to millions after they had stocked all the rivers and streams of the and some in moselle and the haut and bas rhin dr haxo secretary of the des drew the attention of tho academy of sciences aces and of the government government Jovern ment to the danover discovery the academy declared that it was of an immense national importance though it had long been known to the scientific men as a scientific curiosity not however as a practical utility the government on its part saw that the application of it ita to the rivers and streams of france would not only afford employment to a vast number of persons but would enable an immense addition to be made at scarcely any any expense to the peoples food it accordingly took the two men into its service 3 and made them apply the 1 tern tein to different waters they have dono done so with most singular success rivers and lakes in which there were no fish are now teeming with them nor have they confined their operations a eions to trout alone but have extender extended them t to 0 salmon al carp pike tunch touch and perch and in each case with complete success indeed their system tem is applicable to all sorts of fresh ater water v fish and to those which after spawning in in rivers rivers descend to the sea among the he rivers they have already stocked are those of the asere haute loire allier lozere meuse and the haute caone saone several gentlemen of property have also tried the system with success on their estates in burgundy brie and normandy in addition to the breeding of fish in enormous quantities it enables fish of different cUff erent species to be naturalized in strange waters or removed from river to river so great is the importance which the government attaches to the plan that it has nominated a commission of eminent scientific men to superintend the operations of gehin gebin and remy the eur announces that the minister of marino and colonies hns has also ordered that experiments shall be made to apply it to salt water fish at the mouth of rivers and off the coast and especially to lobsters M valenciennes an eminent ichthyologist and member of the institute has been charged to examine the mouths of the rivers and the coasts from havre to L la a teste and to state in what places th the e experiments may be I 1 tried with I 1 most chances of advantage M milne E edwards dwards and al coste both bot h m members embers of the institute have been directed to make similar investigations between cherbourg Cher bourg and granville and in the environs of Tr trouville onville french paper |