viii PREFACE 



of the discovery of a n^vi British rockling [Motella fusca). 

 Messrs. Garstang and Balfour Brown omit to say on what part 

 of the coast it was taken, but it is mentioned as having been 

 found on the shore under a stone. That makes the second 

 new fish added to the British Hst during 1903. Another 

 recent addition to our knowledge of sea-fish is in respect 

 of the grey mullets. Mr. Boulenger now recognises three 

 British species, Mugil chelo, M. auratus, M. capita. It is, 

 however, probable that, so far as the economic food-fishes 

 are concerned, the list will for many years at any rate remain 

 as it is, although, as the more esteemed kinds, like the sole, 

 are gradually exhausted by the trawl, it is possible that, until 

 at any rate artificial re-stocking has been raised from the 

 domain of speculation to that of practical economics, other 

 kinds of fish will be pressed into the service of man. It is, in 

 fact, well known in the fish trade that many kinds formerly 

 thrown overboard as offal now find their way to the tables of 

 the polite, and this alone shows the need of knowing some- 

 thing about the smaller and less familiar denizens of our seas. 



On the question of our fisheries the author has dealt in 

 another work, and it has here been thought proper to devote 

 only a single chapter to the methods by which sea fish are 

 caught for the market. That done, they are no longer the 

 concern of the biologist, for the problems of their transport 

 inland then occupy the legislator on other grounds. 



It is in the nature of an island kingdom like ours to have 

 more than its proportionate share of seaboard, but, even making 

 due allowance for this advantage of geographical position, it 

 will be found that British seas harbour a marvellous abundance 

 of fishes. How little is known of these by the ordinary citizen 

 may be gathered from the probability that ninety-nine out of 

 every hundred doubt that real sharks of great size occur within 

 a mile or two of our bathing-stations, and any one stating 

 as much would be abused as an alarmist. With not far short 

 of two hundred species to notice, it has obviously been neces- 



