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Rh admitted only if the fry were sedentary and could be planted in suitable localities where young fish were naturally scarce But the fry drift with the currents as helplessly as the eggs, and the a priori objections to the utility of the operations have in no case been met by evidence of tangible results. The plaice fry hatched in the Scottish establishment have been distributed for many years in the waters of Loch Fyne. Yet in this area, according to the investigations of Mr Williamson (Report of the Scottish Fishery Board for 1898), nearly 500 millions of plaice eggs are naturally produced in one spawning season. Evidence is still lacking as to whether the 20 to 30 million fry annually added from the hatchery have appreciably increased the quantities of young plaice on the surrounding shores. Supposing this could be established, the question would still remain whether the same result could not be obtained at far less expense by dispensing with the hatching operations and distributing the eggs directly after fertilization. In the United States the utility of the cod-hatching operations has been constantly asserted by representatives of the Bureau of Fisheries, but practically the only evidence adduced is the occasional appearance of unusual numbers of cod in the neighbourhood. It has not been established that the fluctuations in the local cod fisheries bear any fixed relation to the extent of the hatching operations, while the earlier reports of the Commissioners of Fisheries contain evidence that similar fluctuations occurred before the hatching of “fish commission cod” had begun.

The situation may be summed up in the words of Mr Fryer, H.M. Superintending Inspector of Fisheries, who critically examined the evidence bearing upon the operations of the Newfoundland Hatchery at Dildo (Reports x.–xii. of the Inspectors of Sea Fisheries, E. & W.): “Where the establishment of a hatchery, even on the smallest scale, is followed by an increased take of fish, there is a tendency to connect the two as cause and effect on insufficient evidence, and without any regard to the many conditions which have always led to fluctuations in the case of any particular kind of fish.”

The most exact investigations bearing upon this problem are those which have been recently undertaken in Norway in connexion with the cod-hatching operations at Arendal under Captain Dannevig Four fjords were selected in the south coast of Norway in proximity to the hatchery, and the usual number of fry (10–30 millions) were planted in the spring in alternate fjords, leaving the intermediate fjords unsupplied. The relative number of young cod in the various fjords was then carefully investigated throughout the succeeding summer and autumn months It was found that there was no relation between the abundance of young fish and the presence or absence of “artificial” fry. In 1904, 33 million fry were planted in Sondelefjord and young fish were exceptionally abundant in the following autumn (three times as abundant as in 1903 when no fry were planted). But their abundance was equally striking in other fjords in which no fry had been planted, while in 1905 all the fjords were deficient in young cod whether they had been planted with fry from the hatchery or not.

It would thus seem clear that the attempts hitherto made to increase the supply of sea-fish by artificial hatching have been unsuccessful. The experience gained has doubtless not been wasted, but the direction to be taken by future work is plain. The energy and money devoted to hatching operations should be diverted to the serious attempt to discover a means of rearing on a large scale the just-hatched fry of the more sedentary species to a sturdy adolescence. When that has been done (it has been achieved by the present writer in the case of the sea fish Cottus with demersal eggs,) it would be possible to deposit the young fish in suitable localities on a large scale, with a reasonable prospect of influencing the local abundance of the species of fish in question.

PISCINA, a Latin word first applied to a fish-pond, and later used for any pool of water for bathing, &c., either natural or artificial, and also for a tank or reservoir. In ecclesiastical usage the term was given to a shallow stone basin (the French cuvette) placed near the altar in a church, with drains to take away the water used in the ablutions at the mass. “Piscinae” seem at first to have been mere cups or small basins, supported on perforated stems, placed close to the wall, and afterwards to have been recessed therein and covered with niche heads, which often contained shelves to serve as aumbries. They are rare in England till the 13th century, after which there is scarcely an altar without one. They frequently take the form of a double niche, with a shaft between the arched heads, which are often filled with elaborate tracing.

PISEK, a town of Bohemia, 55 m. S. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900), 13,608, mostly Czech. It lies on the right bank of the Wottawa, which is here crossed by an interesting stone bridge of great antiquity. The most prominent buildings are the church of the Nativity, the town-hall, and a castle dating from the 15th century. The industries are iron and brass founding, brewing, and the manufacture of shoes, paper, cement and Turkish fezes. Feldspar, quartz and granite are quarried in the environs The name of Pisek, which is the Czech for sand, is said to be derived from the gold-washing formerly carried on in the bed of the Wottawa (1571–1621).

In 1619 it was captured by the imperialist general, Karl Bonaventura de Longueval, Graf von Buquoy, and suffered so severely that the citizens opened their gates to his opponent, Ernst von Mansfeld. This was punished in October of the following year, when Duke Maximilian of Bavaria sacked the town and put nearly all the inhabitants to the sword. Pisek was one of the chief centres of the Hussites. It was occupied by the French in 1741.

PISIDIA, in ancient geography, the name given to a country in the south of Asia Minor, immediately north of Pamphylia by which it was separated from the Mediterranean, while it was bounded on the N. by Phrygia, on the E. by Lycaonia, Isauria and Cilicia, and on the W. and S W. by Lycia and a part of Phrygia. It was a rugged and mountainous district, comprising some of the loftiest portions of the great range of Mt Taurus, together with the offshoots of the same chain towards the central table-land of Phrygia. Such a region was naturally occupied from a very early period by wild and lawless races of mountaineers, who were very imperfectly reduced to subjection by the powers that successively established their dominion in Asia Minor. The Pisidians are not mentioned by Herodotus, either among the nations that were subdued by Croesus, or among those that furnished contingents to the army of Xerxes, and the first mention of them in history occurs in the Anabasis of Xenophon, when they furnished a pretext to the younger Cyrus for levying the army with which he designed to subvert his brother's throne, while he pretended only to put down the Pisidians who were continually harassing the neighbouring nations by their lawless forays (Anab. i. 1, 11, ii. 1, 4, &c.). They are afterwards mentioned frequently by later writers among the inland nations of Asia Minor, and assume a more prominent part in the history of Alexander the Great, to whose march through their country they opposed a determined resistance. In Strabo’s time they had passed under the Roman dominion, though still governed by their own petty chiefs and retaining to a considerable extent their predatory habits (giving rise to such wars as that carried on by Quirinius, about 8–6 ).

The boundaries of Pisidia, like those of most of the inland provinces or regions of Asia Minor, were not clearly defined, and appear to have fluctuated at different times. This was especially the case on the side of Lycia, where the upland