PREFACE 



I COULD not have attempted to write this book for the 

 British Fisheries Society if I had not had Dr. Travis Jenkins' 

 The Sea Fisheries, Dr. Meek's Migrations oj Fish, Dr. Mcintosh 

 and Dr. Masterman's British Marine Food Fishes, Dr. James 

 Johnstone's British Fisheries, and Dr. Fowler's Science oj the 

 Sea on my table. To their authors I owe more than I can 

 express. But above all I am indebted to Dr. Hjort, whose 

 chapters in The Deaths oj the Ocean are an inexhaustible 

 mine of information. This book, such as it is, is chiefly an 

 expansion of many notebooks — the sort- of notes which every 

 District Officer in the India which has passed was wont to 

 make about the things which were his business, all through his 

 service. They taught him, unless he metamorphosed into an 

 habitual Secretary to Government, that he knew nothing. 



Let me thank the civil servants who prepared the Annual 

 Fishery Eeports of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, 

 and the Fishery Board for Scotland and the Irish Department 

 of Agriculture. My copies of their statistical tables have been 

 thumbed to the point of disintegration — a happy fate which 

 seldom overtakes blue books. Professor James Johnstone has 

 acted not only as illustrator but as editor, and Dr. Hjort has 

 kindly allowed me to use several illustrations from his works. 



Finally my thanks are due to Dr. M. Y. Lebour, Mr. E. H. 

 Havelock, Dr. E. J. Allen, Professor Garstang, Professor 

 J. Stanley Gardiner, Professor Meek, Mr. G. Moody, Mr. B. 



