large quantities is, comparatively speaking, easy, and that millions may be produced, protected from every danger, and turned out into their natural element at the proper age, which Mr. Shaw has proved by repeated experiments on a small scale to be when they have attained about two years of age. When the par marks disappear they assume the silvery scales of their parents, and distinctly show a strong inclination to escape from confinement and proceed downwards to the

sea.

'Professor Agassiz asserts, and I fully believe with truth, that the ova of all fish, when properly impregnated, can be conveyed in water of a proper temperature even across the Atlantic, as safely as if it were naturally deposited by the parent fish; so that any quantity of salmon or other spawn can (after impregnation on the banks of a river) be carried to other streams, however distant, which may be favourable for hatching. It may be right to observe, that as the fry are to remain two years in the artificial pools where hatched, fresh places must be used every second year for the spawn, as even one-year-old fry will destroy spawn, or their more infantile brethren, if left together: old spent salmon are also destructive both to spawn and fry.

A

It can only be ascertained by experience what kind or quantity of food will be required for the fry. Carrion hung at the top of the pool in which they are would, in the opinion of Professor Agassiz and Mr. Shaw, supply them with maggots; but in this there are difficulties, and when tried by me this season, a few of the fry were found dead round the carrion given to them. The droppings of cattle allowed to rest till half dry, and occupied by worms and the ova of insects, appear to suit them best. About the 1st of September last, when on an agricultural tour of Belgium, I visited an establishment belonging to King Leopold, and adjoining his new palace of Ardennes, on a much more extensive scale than that now described, where the breeding of trout had been tried for the three previous seasons, though with but little success. very few small trout bred 1839-40 were still alive, but the ova of 1841 were a complete failure, chiefly from not properly covering the spawn with gravel, and other errors. Bread made of brown and white flour mixed was the food found best suited to the few living, who, judging from their shape as seen swimming about in a small pool, were in excellent condition. The trout-breeding establishment of Ardennes, however, proves that their spawn, if treated in the same way as that of salmon above described, will produce the same successful results, and that any one possessing a convenient pond or stream may stock it with the best kinds of trout or other fish in one or two years, and by good feeding have them in high condition. Where trout already exists of small size and inferior quality, I would recommend wholly destroying the breed by saturating the water with quick-lime or any other mode more advisable, and procuring spawn or fry from lakes where the best kinds of trout are found, in Scotland or elsewhere. The same may be said of grayling, pike, or any other kind of fish suited to ponds or brooks and rivers as may be desired by their owners, which renders the discovery now made known of value to all, and in all quarters, as well as

to

to salmon-fishing proprietors. In conclusion, I hope that the above brief account may not only be well understood, but that the ease and comparatively trifling expense at which the breeding of fry can be accomplished may induce many this season to try this novel but successful mode of increasing our stocks of salmon and other fish, and consequently adding largely to the wealth of our country.'-Annals of Natural History, Nov., 1841.

Sir Francis adds that, should any further information be wanted, he will gladly reply to inquiries; and he expresses a hope that those who may be successful in this spring will communicate to him any account of breeding, feeding, &c. Sir Francis, however, has proved enough to put it in the power of anybody infested with a poor breed of trout to fill their places with such fish as glitter on the rustic dish borne by the lowly but lovely handmaiden in Edwin Landseer's exquisite Bolton Abbey, if he will only attend to their food. We know Sir Francis to be a practical man, and we consider this experiment of no slight importance. Elsewhere* we have shown that the principle is not new; but not the less praise is due to the practical experimentalist who has brought it into successful action. We have also dwelt on the advantages of naturalising good species in our fresh waters, and we cannot close this imperfect sketch without alluding to two which are entirely within our reach one is still an inhabitant of some of our rivers. We will first speak of the foreigner.

No one has ever tasted the Lucioperca Sandra-or in other words visited Berlin-without pronouncing it delicious. This pike-perch is caught in the Danube, the Elbe, and the Oder. The genus is said to be found in the Baltic, Caspian, and Black seas, and to occur abundantly in the Volga. There appear to be several species, one American, and all are desirable for the table: but the Lucioperca Sandra might be easily introduced into the streams of this country. It is true that this species is more tender than the perch, and will not bear carriage as that fish will; and this tenderness, Cuvier thought, had prevented its introduction into France. In these days of steam, however, the fish themselves might with a little care be brought to us alive, to say nothing of the transportation of the impregnated ova. The fish, which is perch-like in its general appearance and markings, but much longer in proportion to its depth, grows to the length of three or four feet, and sometimes weighs twenty pounds. The flesh when well cooked flakes out snow-white, and is rich and sapid. Excellent is the pike-perch plain-boiled; and good any how. Yet,

Quarterly Review, vol. lviii., p. 336 et seq.

as

one

as far as we know,* neither Lucullus nor Phagon ever tasted it, although the latter swallowed almost everything; and on occasion, after discussing a wether and a pig by way of entrées, ate up an entire boar at a single dinner, an accomplishment which would be invaluable at our modern tables, where that stubborn piece of resistance so often remains untouched. The ancients were, however, up to the artificial breeding of fish, apparently, for it is related that Octavius bred giltheads in the sea like corn upon the ground.'

The neglected fish of our own waters is the burbot, or eelpout, Lota vulgaris of authors, Gadus Lota of Linnæus. Our ancestors knew its value well. Many of our readers have doubtless revelled in the matelote prepared from the Lotte of Lake Lucerne. That is our burbot-confined to a very few rivers (of which the Cam, the Trent, the Ouse, and the Derwent are the principal), and now very little known. As it is common in the Swiss lakes, where it is taken in eel-pots, there is no doubt that it would thrive equally well in ours, and amply repay those who might breed it for the market, where its superiority would soon be recognised.

ART. VI.-Arundines Cami. Collegit atque edidit Henricus Drury, A.M. 8vo. pp. 261. Cantabrigiæ. 1841.

THIS

HIS elegant volume carries us back to the days of youth: it awakens recollections of cricket-matches in green summer fields, and boatings on blue and quiet waters. We are again roaming among meadows by the river side, or loitering in our idle skiff along the stream with friends, some of whom have reached the irrevocable bourn, some wandered far from us along the devious paths of life; some have risen to eminence and fame, others have sunk or retired into peaceful obscurity. It awakens less tender, perhaps, but more calmly pleasurable emotions, the dim reminiscences of those days (for they belong, we think, rather to the public school than the University), when the world of poetry and of letters opened before; us when, the drudgery of grammatical instruction being over, our minds began to have free intercourse with the poets, orators, and historians of Rome and Greece; when we studied with fresh and unexhausted wonder the inimitable art of Virgil, the fervid passion of Catullus; Lucretius, with his unrivalled skill in painting with words; *Such is the opinion of the learned, who have been unable to trace its presence at the tables of the ancients, notwithstanding its excellence and its wide European range. and

and Horace, whose grace and art we could feel, but whose shrewd views of human life it requires more mature experience in life fully to appreciate: when with not less ardent, but, at first, less confident enthusiasm, we lifted the curtain of the Greek theatre, penetrated awe-struck into the gloom of Eschylus, admired the finely-constructed fables of Sophocles, or enchanted our ears with the music of Aristophanes: when, at length, as our minds approached their stature, we could comprehend the majestic simplicity of Homer. To those in whom such remembrances either arise not or arise without delight and without gratitude, this book will have no interest, and our pages no attraction-let them pass on, we assure them, unenvied, to severer or more stirring matters. For our own parts, we can look back on the time, wasted, as some would say, on the composition of Greek and Latin verse, not merely with these soft and pleasing admonitions of the past, but with deliberate and, we are persuaded, rational satisfaction.

We are not disposed to argue the point at length, but we have used the expression of gratitude to such pursuits not carelessly or inadvertently, but in perfect sincerity. If scholarship be in itself a gift and privilege of the highest value, we know nothing which contributes so powerfully to this end-nothing which promotes this part of the æsthetic cultivation of the mind, so much as composition in the learned languages; and since experience shows that, in the season of youthful imaginativeness, where one boy will labour to write well in prose, many will be ambitious of trying their strength in verse, this form of composition will always awaken the most earnest emulation, and call forth the powers of the ripening understanding. It is invaluable, considered merely as a key to the learned languages, as enabling us to comprehend and feel all the nicer shades of meaning and expression, the delicate turns of thought, the curious felicity and harmony of compositions-the writers of which studied numbers even in prose, and in verse are full of the finest metrical artifices, the liquid flow, the solemn pause, the alternating strength and softness. We may not possess the accurate pronunciation or intonation of Greek or Latin verse-we feel nevertheless the exquisite beauty; the rhythm has that correspondence with the thought, the modulation is so nicely adapted to the feeling, that though the great secret of ancient metre be still in some respects a mystery, to the well-organised and disciplined ear it is full of music-and the best discipline of the ear is the practice of composition in verse. Even where the Greek or Latin verse is a mere cento of classical thoughts, images, or expressions, it cannot be unprofitable to sound scholarship to be frequently

VOL. LXIX. NO. CXXXVIII.

2 G

frequently reproducing in different form and order, if with intelligence and propriety, the conceptions and the language of the great writers. This is the lowest view. Where the mastery over the language is more complete, and our own thoughts and the creations of our fancy are embodied in words perfectly true to the genius and idiom of the ancient tongue, the exercise is at once the discipline, the test, and the triumph of consummate scholarship. Arguments, however, we conceive, even if conducted with the utmost calmness and impartiality, on such a subject, would have little effect. Those who think with us are already confirmed in their tastes-they are experimentally convinced of the value of such studies: those who are against us may perhaps give us credit for ingenuity in support of a falling cause-but will still smile superior at our antiquated prejudices. Who would try to convince a deaf man into the love of music? or prove syllogistically to a man who cares not for bodily grace and activity, that gymnastic exercise gives strength, and pliancy, and dexterity to the limbs?

An appeal to authority will, perhaps, meet with no better reception in adverse quarters. Yet it is remarkable how many of our greatest men in every rank and profession have, at some period of their lives, sought either an exercise of their scholarship, or sometimes a distraction from weightier cares, in the composition of Latin verse. This may be attributed in a great degree to the importance long attached to these studies in our great public schools and in our Universities; but it would not have been so frequently reverted to in after life, if it possessed not some intrinsic value, something congenial with lofty and cultivated minds;-that which having adorned the youthful eloquence, and certainly not enfeebled the high and statesmanlike character of men like Fox, Grenville, Canning, and Wellesley, has become the graceful and manly amusement of their declining years, will still, we are persuaded, command the lively interest of many, and justify our devoting some pages of our journal to this somewhat exclusive subject.

The editor of this volume bears a name long, intimately, and honourably connected with two of our great public schools; and his own compositions show that he has not degenerated from his race. His collection consists entirely of translations; they are chiefly, we apprehend, contributed by young friends, his contemporaries at school or in the University. There appears, indeed, some capriciousness in the admission of a few poems by older men;-probably the editor has given such as he could command: but if Porson's well-known version of Three children sliding on the ice' is repeated-(we cannot, indeed, have it too often)and verses included (certainly among the very best in the volume) by that excellent scholar, the late Bishop of Lichfield, Dr. Butler

-we