IT is an old saying that good may become evil through, overdoing it. Even the Athenians were tired of hearing Aristides called just too often, and visited their own perversity upon the unlucky statesman, simply because they found it possible to have too much of a good thing. At the present day not a few enthusiasts do their cause much mischief, because they will ride their hobbies too hard. The acclimatisation enthusiasts, with all their zeal and good intentions, are in danger of falling into this pit. Acclimatisation -- or the transfer of animals from one part of the world where they abound to another which is deficient is them -- is in general essentials a very good thing, if it be carried out prudently and with due judgment. At this moment the Australians are bitterly rueing the day when their zeal for acclimatisation brought the rabbit of the Old World to their shores. The camel of Asia, too, which was to do such great things as the ship of Australian deserts, has turned out a failure, not being adapted to his new home; while the imported sparrow is a worse burden to the New Yorkers then the grasshopper he was designed to relieve them from. Red deer and pheasants, which seem to be thriving well enough in New Zealand, were legitimate subjects for importation, and may serve to vary the diet of the settlers. But the fish acclimatisers threaten to bring worse things upon us. The lakes and streams of this country are already well stocked by nature with a sufficient variety and quantity of moat eligible and delicious fish, whether regarded as objects of diet or sport. But because other countries, notably America, contain a host of other species, some of them attractive in every way, nothing will content the acclimatisation zealots but that we must have them too. Even the importation of grayling from English waters to the Clyde is now generally admitted to have been a mistake, as it has partly spoiled the trout fishing, and, moreover, grayling were not wanted there. So the introduction of the Geneva lake trout into some of our northern lochs has resulted in producing a hybrid which is far from an improvement upon either of the present stocks. Another crossbreed was threatened by the bringing over of the American brook trout; but, fortunately, the experiment has not as yet proved successful, as the salmo fontinalis does not take kindly to British waters. More, however, is to come. Piscatorial and piscieultural enthusiasts are advocating the claims of black bass, cat-fish, both yellow and blue, Canadian white fish, and other scaly species, to swim in British waters. No doubt the Themes and other rivers may be excellently adapted to black bass, and so he may find it; but the chances are that if he once get established therein, he will behave to all its native finny inhabitants as the Norway Kit did to the native breed of similar rodents; and the cat-fish, sly alluvia, and the pike perch of the Danube, all of which it ha8 been proposed at various times to acclimatise amongst us, have very healthy appetites for all other fish in their neighbourhood. If gastronomists must have cat-fish, shad, pompano, black bass, or white fish, let them cross the Atlantic to catch and eat them in their native waters. The voyage is swift and easy enough now-a-days, and they can compare the Sebaga salmon and other American varieties of the salmo genus with a genuine Tay or Severn fish. Honest travellers tell us that they are at best no more then indifferent. Why then seek to let them loose upon our lakes and streams instead of leaving us our old nobility, the lordly salmon, and his first cousin the trout? It may be true, as alleged by Sir James Modish Maitland, who has done jejunely for pisciculture in Scotland -- that is, of the native breeds -- that the fresh-water smelt of America would thrive admirably in the Highland lochs, and enable the latter to produce a heavier crop of fish. But most of them are well filled enough already, and hardly need the intrusion of foreign curiosities, many of which are water pirates of the most dangerous character. Let well alone is a maxim which applies to speculative schemes of this nature; and as for the black bass, he deserves especially to be left in his native home. Canadian whitefish, again, is very excellent in Canada, where it is a staple diet in winter for both man and dog, and it is highly problematical whether this fish would thrive at all in our warmer lakes. If he does, so much the worse, a somewhat cruel series of experiments seems to have been lately tried by the National lush Culture Association in London -- viz., what thermometrical degree of hot water ordinary fresh-water fish will endure and yet live? To enhance the eccentric nature of the experiment, any fish that showed signs of exhaustion was dosed with brandy -- an operation which, we are told, proved highly successful, though not always, it being admitted that some of the delicate fish succumbed to this brandy-and-water treatment! Such experiments cannot ever plead the defence which is sometimes set up for vivisection.
North British Daily Mail, June 2, 1885.
The Natal Power of France
The City Guilds
Table of Contents
Miracles of healing - Christian Miracles or Healing
History of Russia: Christian Versus Barbarian
History of Japan: Early Christian Martyrs
The Jesus of History
The Assyrian Origin of Devil Worshippers
The Christ Of Dogma
The early history of Constantinople
