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Wytheville, Virginia. Not less than 98 per cent. of the eggs hatched after their long journey. No doubt in this climate my two-year-old fish will be nearly three times the weight of Mr. Sherlock's at the same age. But even more important than their rapid growth is the fact that rainbows, spawning as they do fully three months later than any other of the Salmonido, would be in admirable condition to market in December and January, at which season they would realise exotic prices.

The naturalisation of that sporting fish the striped bass in the rivers and estuaries of the Pacific coast is by no means the least interesting episode in American fish culture. In July 1879, at the request of the California Fish Commission, the Federal Department transferred from their eastern hatchery on the Navesink a few yearling bass, of which 132 only reached San Francisco alive. In August 1880 a strange unknown fish weighing a pound attracted curious eyes on the slabs in the fish market of San Francisco. It was identified as a striped bass. In 1884 a second of the immigrants, weighing this time 18 lb., was sold in that market. In 1888 enormous numbers of young bass were netted, and fearing lest they might be exterminated, the California Legislature passed a law prohibiting the sale of bass weighing less than eight pounds. This limit has now been reduced to a pound. Some idea of the extraordinary abundance of these fish may be gathered from the fact that last year the take of a single boat in a single day was 1,500 fish, weighing over 9,000 lb. So recently as 1888 bass, although at that time no longer a novelty on the Pacific, were still selling for four shillings per pound; to-day the retail price in San Francisco is threepence per pound, or about one half the price for which it sells in its home markets, New York or Baltimore. In the San Joachim, the Sacramento, and a hundred other rivers flowing into the Pacific these fish now abound. Well may the California State Fishery Board declare that the bass alone has paid them tenfold more than all the money that has hitherto been expended on the protection of both fish and game.

8

The purpose of this paper will have been abundantly fulfilled should it attract others to hatch salmon and trout for our home waters. The cost of the operation on any such modest scale as Mr. Sherlock's is almost nominal; the interest is very great; indeed, it conduces, I fear, to much idling around the ponds during pleasant hours. Lady Warwick will permit the suggestion that it is one of the country pursuits of all best adapted to woman's work, and that a small hatchery, if pure water is available, in connection with

The market value to the fishermen of the Pacific coast of the shad and striped bass taken between 1888 and 1896 was about 192,000 dollars. The aggregate expense of introducing these fish to the Pacific coast was under 5,000 dollars.-Report of Commission, 1896, p. 141.

her Reading Ladies' Agricultural College, would presently result in scattering the students of this pretty and as yet unexplored science far and wide. The physical effort involved is of all our rural industries the smallest; what alone is needed is attention, light fingers, and particularly cleanliness; and a woman equipped with the experience needed to conduct a fish hatchery could always in after life command her own terms. But apart from these educational conditions, may we not, in the case of the salmon, claim from the State a new departure in State Socialism such as I have pointed out is in the United States affording to-day a plentiful food supply and at a minimum of cost? For, unlike the trout, the protection and propagation of a valuable but migratory food fish such as the salmon cannot fairly be left to private enterprise. The operation, if we are some day to have salmon at threepence per pound, and if our rivers are to be stocked to their fullest capacity, can only be carried out through establishments all over our islands, on the same generous lines as that at Craig Brook. Nor is it reasonable to expect that the riparian owner will hatch salmon on the chance that one in a thousand, having evaded the net fisherman of the estuary, may return after his seasons in the ocean to the fresh waters where he was cradled.

In the case of these islands, begirt as they are by an endless expanse of ocean, its acres rent-free to all men, the neglect of the State to develop scientifically the sources of its very cheapest food supply is almost shameful. Far otherwise is the enlightened attitude of the United States. During the present year, if I include some two hundred millions of young lobsters, not less than a thousand millions of tiny fish will have been hatched by the Federal Fish Department, to be liberated in their rivers and harbours."

MORETON FREWEN.

"The Government of Saxony pays 1 mark 30 pfennigs (about sixteenpence) for every hundred salmon ova hatched in private establishments. The Netherlands Government pays about a halfpenny per capita for all salmon fry. The Imperial Government of Germany maintains its own fish cultural establishments on a liberal scale. The State hatchery at Huningen so long ago as 1886 was 'planting' a million young salmon yearly in the Rhine. Probably, however, the chief efforts of the German State establishments are directed to the propagation of carp (Cyprinus carpio). Herr Haack, the manager of the great establishment at Huningen, estimates that from the produce of three carp he realises a profit of 60%. in the second season. The branches of the juniper, immersed in the carp pond, are said to be the best media for the spawn; the eggs, being glutinous, adhere to the branches. The boughs when covered with spawn should be conveyed to empty ponds, as the older carp devour the fry. The carp ponds are dried and cultivated every fourth year, the agricultural yield, especially for garden produce, being immensely stimulated by the residuum from the three years of fish culture. Contrast such conditions of enlightened encouragement on the continent of Europe, and in America, with the legislative extravagances to which Mr. Henry Ffennell has recently drawn attention in the Times-viz. the actual illegality attaching to the sale of young live salmon. It is only in Great Britain that the State will neither do the work itself nor permit private enterprise to do it, except under circumstances which involve a financial fine.

VOL. XLVI-No. 271

EE

AN INDIAN PLAGUE STORY

I

'BUT you will forget me, Het Ram!'

'I shall have many

'Yes, 'tis not unlikely,' was the response. things to interest me; knowledge to acquire; the world to sample; a name to make. How then will there be room for thought of women, and petting, and suchlike? But, when I am tired of it all, I'll come back to this forgotten little spot, and I'll find you just the same, sitting here among the lotuses and marigolds, and with a heart just as full of love for me as it is now-rather fuller, perhaps, with the enforced repression.'

'Oh, Het Ram, how unkind you are! I've spoiled you.'

'Have you, indeed! Who would be the more unhappy, you or I, did my father wed me to the wealthy Tara? Now listen seriously, Sita. You must drop all this nonsense. I am sorry I let them educate you. It has given you notions which patch clumsily on to the heritage of traditions into which you were born. Remember you are still a Hindu wife, however glibly your tongue may adapt itself to foreign languages. And remember what that means. When you rode the "marriage" horse beside me (how many years ago was that?), or, even later, when you trod the seven steps round the sacred fire, 'twas not because I loved you, or you loved me. It was partly, as you know, because the astrologers gave the word, and partly because your dowry was sufficiently attractive. True it is that I fought your battles for you, Sita, when we were children together, playing on the great courtyard at our gillie-danda or our ātia patiā, and I won't deny that I have been very kind to you, letting them teach you most of the things I learnt myself, and saving you from household drudgeries. And I have even let you call me by my name, and raise your eyes in my presence, and dine sitting by my side (think of that !), and I dare say you've boasted of all this to the women at the well of a morning. But I warn you, Sita, set not too much store by these indulgences. They are indicative of nothing, save, perhaps, of my own superiority to trifles.' (Sita stole a look at him. No! he was quite serious.)

'There is, remember, a habit of loving, and it includes in its generous scope all who come within physical range of its influenceall accustomed daily objects. Think of all that means, Sita, in the long years when you no longer form an item in my immediate horizon. Think of it, and perhaps that will cure you of expecting too much. . . . Yes! the gods and fate have created you for my convenience and ministry; the only dignity which you can ever acquire will be incidental. Hitherto you have failed me, and were I to die to-morrow who is there to raise the supplicatory censer beside the pyre?

'Be thankful, little Sita, for what of affection and indulgence you have been allowed, and while I am away you will best please me by being a good daughter to my old father. He dotes on you, you know, and well, I won't promise, but give me your ear, Sita; if you should send me word that I need not fear about the funeral pyre-you understand ?—why, I may hurry home in a year or sowho knows?'

They stood by a little pond of lotuses-the man and woman; both strong, handsome young creatures, developed wholesomely, mind and body. The girl, in her clinging white and green draperies, seemed herself but a human rendering of the delicate yet stately flower, as it floated in its dainty purity on the close surface of graceful green leaves. And the man seemed noting this with an air of satisfied proprietorship through his half-shut sleepy eyelids. She had been a bit playful to begin with, and had even ventured a jeer or two, and a saucy glance with her handsome black eyes; but as his unimpassioned homily proceeded she drew away, hurt and doubtful, and listened with drooping head.

There was now a moment's silence. An ugly toad dared a clumsy leap over the divine lotus, and Het Ram threw a stone at him. The sound roused Sita, she drew herself up to her full height and seemed about to speak, but changing her mind she walked rapidly

away.

'Sita!' called her husband; but for once no little pet caressing creature came to rub a gentle cheek against his extended hand.

II

It is nine years since the scene by the lotus pond: the hour is again that of the short Indian twilight: the little silver bell tinkles at a wayside shrine, calling the labouring man to propitiate the idol for the carelessnesses and detected dishonesties of his day's labours, and goodly Hindus, men and women, stream down the busy thoroughfare, responsive to the call. The street presented a whole spectrum of exquisite colour. There were the graceful draperies of the women, and the brilliant turbans of the men, for the sterner sex is

allowed, in India, the indulgence of primitive tastes for something attractive in his apparel: and, indeed, to the seeing eye, the little procession was inarticulate history. That sharp-eyed slightly built man with the curious close-fitting turban, terminating in a seeming bottomless crown, is by caste and profession a bania, or moneylender; he probably comes from Kathiawar, and the well-worn books under his left arm contain, I doubt not, matter sufficiently explanatory of the anxious look on his unaneled countenance.

With this other devotee, humorous, kindly, old, one wishes better acquaintance. On his forehead he bears an open triangle and a large black dot-the mark significant of the god to whom he has allotted himself, the classic Vishnu; and he divides his attention between a pair of old steel scissors and a pair of new red shoes, which last he carries carefully under a protecting left arm; the white dust is not unpleasing to his toes, and, as for the shoes, they are no addition to the dignity of old Narain, the tailor, than whom the town holds no more respected citizen.

Beside him walks a hybrid production, a creature evidently of the very new school. His large, flat, red turban with its golden fringe is his one concession to his caste. For the rest, he creaks aloud in cheap patent-leather shoes and dubious white socksineffectual covering for a gratuitous display of muscleless leg, surmounted by folds of loose white drapery and a rusty black coat. He is discussing with old Narain the chance of escape for the city from the dread disease, news of which is brought from infected towns by fear-stricken refugees. But his pompous periods are suspended for remark on the slender, gracefully clad figure of a woman, who, avoiding the crush, hugs the shop-fronts, hurrying swiftly forward to anticipate the inrush at the little temple.

'You know Sita,' he says complacently to his companion. 'Sita, of the house of Bhandarkar, the old pundit? In a week or so she will be my bride. There are no prouder souls on this incarnation than the girl and her father: but they will yet be suppliant to me. I shall not curse this sickness if it humbles them-not but that Sita will be worth the price I pay'-he added generously. 'She will be a great help to me over my new paper. 'Tis well to educate girls sometimes, it makes them marketable.'

Bhikku, the oilman, jostled him at this moment. He was clad in a slight garment, wound about his loins; of distinctive headdress he was innocent, but his shining personality advertised his calling with sufficient emphasis; and he bore, pendent, a small vessel full of the sweet oil of the country. A judicious swing deposited a full pice-worth on the brand-new patent leather.

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'Hi! Master Gopal!' exclaimed the knave, in well-simulated sullen resentment. You know how to write essays on the rights of the poor, and the wrong done us by the Government with its taxes

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