14 INLAND FISHEEIES. 



scientific metliocls was to court practical failure. The marine 

 " Kew " took sliape at Plymouth, in the building erected by the 

 Marine Biological Association, and maintained partly by a Gov- 

 ernment grant of £500 per annum, but mainly by the subscri^Dtions 

 of the members. This thoroughly English j)roceeding of under- 

 taking a national work b}^ private persons convinced of its nec- 

 essity deserves credit and i^ractical support. Its tables and tanks 

 afford to the biologist opportunities for studying at first hand ex- 

 amples of evolution more finely graded, more numerous, and more 

 coherent among the SAvarming creatures of the sea than among 

 the less numerous and less varied creatures of the land. For those 

 to whom habits rather than structure are an object of curiosity, 

 the services of the local fishermen are engaged to note the move- 

 ments of the fish, the depths at which they are found, the nature 

 of their food, the use of artificial in place of natural bait, the 

 times at which the fish are spawning, and the nature of the ground 

 on which they lie. The scope of its inquiries must range from the 

 deep Atlantic, to see whether or not it is there that the pilchard 

 shoals disappear, to the inlets of Plymouth Sound, and the efi"ects 

 of sewage upon local fishes. And lastly, it must possess an in- 

 telligent director, with ample means at his disposal for capturing, 

 keeping, and observing all sea creatures and products, from a full- 

 grown conger to the egg of the sole. The Journal of the Asso- 

 ciation is rich in interesting exi3eriments and discoveries from 

 its first to its latest number, and yet the work of discovery in this 

 great half -explored region of our populous shallow seas is only in 

 its beginning. Nor can this be matter for surprise when our 

 ignorance of the habits of migratory river fishes is such that it 

 was not until 189G, and then as a novel and striking discovery, 

 that the President of the Royal Society announced that Professor 

 Grassi had at last discovered that the river eels, whose method of 

 reproduction had been a mystery since the days of Aristotle, 

 never breed till they go to the sea, — a discovery made partly owing 

 the aid of the classic Charybdis, whose currents threw up the 

 breeding eels from the deeps in which they are hidden. This 

 would doubtless have been discovered long ago had the eels not 

 reversed the process used by the salmon, and gone to the sea, in- 

 stead of ascending rivers, to breed. On the other hand, it is evi- 

 dence in itself of the difiiculties in the way of marine zoology. 

 Almost the first discovery made at the Lal)oratory bore directly 

 on the great question of the appearance and whereabouts of the 



