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SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1935. Volume 6. Number 15.

A Fishy Lecture

A Fishy Lecture.

"The purpose of eugenics culture is to improve homo sapiens; the purpose of fish culture is to improve fish." We gather from this that fish culture is merely sort of fishy eugenics. Mr. Hefford, chief inspector of fisheries, was lecturing to a small but select gathering of Natural Historians last Wednesday evening. He asked us to throw our minds back several thousand years to the Chinese. This proved difficult, but we succeeded in doing so just in time to hear that the Chinese practised fish culture.

Mr. Hefford then described the methods used by modern fish culturists. The fish are caught while ascending the rivers to spawn. They are taken and "skipped." Fertilisation takes place in the water, and the eggs are hatched under conditions as perfect as possible. The young fish are taken to rivers where the stock is low and are there liberated—poor fish!

Some think that fish left to propogate naturally would do better than those in hatcheries. Fish culture, however, is definitely useful where poor spawning has resulted in understocked rivers.

After the lecture supper was served in the Pass Biology laboratory, and as the Zoo class had dissected dogfish there earlier in the evening, the atmosphere was appropriate for the occasion.