INTRODUCTION. 7 



Yet though this was the condition of the information on 

 the subject in our country, the labours of the American Fish 

 Commission and Prof. Alex. Agassiz had shown that besides 

 the cod, haddock and gurnard the majority of the American 

 flounders, certain kinds of wrasses, a species of sparling, shad, 

 mackerel, Spanish mackerel, a kind of dory and the frog-fish 

 were amongst those which had floating eggs. The late Dr 

 Malm of Gothenburg further increased the list by discovering 

 that the eggs of the plaice were similarly buoyant ; and the 

 late able worker, G. Brook, added to this category the eggs of 

 the lesser weever and the rockling. 



When the Trawling Report was issued considerable dis- 

 appointment was evinced by those who firmly believed in the 

 supposition that the eggs of all the food-fishes were deposited 

 on the bottom, and thus were destroyed by the trawl. Much 

 of this, however, was due to other influences than those which 

 arose on the part of the fishermen themselves, a feature as 

 prominent and far-reaching to-day as in 1884. Those fishermen, 

 however, in contact with the Marine Laboratory at St Andrews, 

 and especially those who saw the work amongst the pelagic 

 eggs then being pursued by the earnest and genial Prof. 

 E. E. Prince 1 , and observed the manipulations of the attendant 

 who went amongst them and removed from the dead fishes the 

 ripe eggs and milt, placed them in sea-water and showed them 

 how the former floated as minute spheres of glassy transparency, 

 soon altered their opinions. Many of them were by and by 

 provided with earthenware jars which they took to sea, and in 

 some instances were successful in bringing to the laboratory 

 fertilized and floating eggs of forms not yet examined. Thus a 

 change was speedily brought about without much notice, so 

 that in July of the same year (1885) when, with Prof. Ray 

 Laukester, at Oxford, urging the University to support the 

 scheme for the proposed Marine Biological Laboratory at 

 Plymouth, one of us was able to adduce this fact as an 

 instance of the effect of such institutions even on the opinions 

 of the fishing population. 



1 Now Commissioner of Fisheries in Canada. 



