196 THE SMALL GAME OF THE SEA 



confining themselves to researches which might produce some 

 ' practical results '. In unregenerate middlo age he has, in his 

 ignorance, given vent to such sentiments himself ! But 

 naturahsts have since that time explained matters to him, and 

 he stands here at the end of his book in a white sheet to recant 

 his heresies, and to place the feet of his fellow-sinners on the 

 path of orthodoxy. This particular heresy, he would plead, can 

 carry no canonical condemnation of the delinquents. For 

 marine science has developed many great doctors but no school 

 of preachers to spread their doctrine. Still, the fact is obvious 

 to any one who really thinks things out for himself that re- 

 searches into the teeming life of a great hidden world hke the 

 sea-floor cannot be circumscribed by any hmitations of this 

 kind. The basic fact is that all forms of hfe in the sea are inter- 

 dependent, and each dependent on certain chemical combina- 

 tions which directly or indirectly affect them all. It is not for 

 a layman to say whether a certain Une of inquiry is or is not 

 Hkely to prove ' practical '. It would be no less absurd than 

 for a marine naturahst to offer advice on the managenient of 

 a fishing-fleet. It is the duty of the naturalist to discover 

 everijthmg connected with the natural history of the sea. 



An instance occurs to the mind. At the end of the last 

 century Dr. Allen was engaged at Plymouth in the study of the 

 growth and development of diatomic plants. He was actually 

 cultivating them. He hoped to be able to make cultures of 

 these plants which would enable him to feed young marine 

 animals. 1 It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of any 

 owners of trawlers or drifters who might see him thus engaged. 

 ' Why can he not get on with fish and fisheries — that is what we 

 want to know about ; why plants ? ' Dr. Allen, if tackled on 

 the subject, would have repHed quite truly that he was experi- 

 menting with diatoms primarily because he wanted to know 

 about them. ' Could this knowledge ever really help fisher- 

 men ? ' He did not know. Possibly not. But he intended to 

 know all that he could about diatoms all the same. 



Then he discovered that if there was a good deal of sunshine 

 in February and March, there would be a plentiful supply of 

 diatoms in the sea ; then that if there were plenty of diatoms 

 in the sea in February and March there would be plenty of 

 copepods in the sea in May. He knew that mackerel ate 

 copepods. This problem occurred to him. Would plenty of 

 sunshine in February mean plenty of mackerel in the following 

 summer? In 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, he 

 kept two tables. One showed the numbers of hours of sunshine 



1 And he has, in fact, succeeded in doing so. 



