Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/389

Rh but also opens an opportunity for valuable scientific investigation. Dissection in the laboratory and histological examination can not tell us all that we need to know about animals. This we can easily realize if we consider what our knowledge of man I would be if it were confined to the re-1 suits of the dissecting room. Our bureau of fisheries is in many ways setting an example to other nations, but we shall probably find that in the near future Japan will surpass us and every other nation in the intensive breeding and rearing of animals living in the water. Indeed, in some ways they appear already to have accomplished this. For example, there are complaints of the disappearance of the diamond-back terrapin, but apparently no efforts are made to rear it. In Japan the soft shelled turtle is reared and sold in large numbers. The accompanying illustration shows the turtle farm of the Hattori family, near Tokyo. In 1866 the first large turtle was caught; by 1874 the number reached fifty, and in the following year breeding was begun.

Over one hundred young were hatched the first year, but nearly all of them were devoured by their parents. It thus became necessary to have separate ponds for the young of the first year and of the second year, while those of the third, fourth and fifth years might be mixed. Last year the farm raised about 70,000 turtles, and it is expected that about 60,000 of them will be reared. When three years old, they are sold in the markets of Tokyo for a price in the neighborhood of forty cents each.

Goldfish have for a long time been bred in Japan, being perhaps the most characteristic oriental fish. The accompanying illustration shows some of the types raised, as depicted by Japanese artists. The extreme plasticity of this fish and the types that are developed by selection are of very considerable scientific interest and would doubtless serve well for the