MARINE FOOD FISHES. el 



Baird, however, led the way ou this side the Atlantic ; and he and his colleagues, after a 

 long and patient struggle with obstacles and difhculties, won a brilliant victory, and 

 demonstrated to the world that the food fishes of the sea were as amenable to control as 

 the anadroraous and fresh water fishes, and could be artificially multiplied to an indefinite 

 extent. A vastly greater field of usefulness was thus thrown open to fish-culturists. 

 Not only so, but Professor Baird was able to formulate the great law of fish-life on which 

 the new departure rested, and thus to remove it from the region of empiricism, and give 

 it a solid scientific foundation. This great law he stated in the following terms : " In 

 regard to the sea fisheries, one important principle should be carefully borne in mind, 

 and that is that every fish that spawns on or near the shores has a definite relationship to 

 a particular area of sea-bottom ; or in other words, that as far as we can judge from 

 experiment and observation, every fish returns, as nearly as possible, to its own birth- 

 place to exercise the function of reproduction, and continues to do so, year after year, 

 during the whole period of its existence. A second law equally positive, with a great 

 variety of fish, is, that they pass from their spawning grounds to the sea by the shortest 

 route that will take them out into the deeper waters where they spend the winter, and 

 that coming and going to and from a given locality, they follow a determinate and definite 

 line of migration." 



Having established this important law by a long series of careful observations, 

 Professor Baird deducted from it the following corollary : "The supply offish in a given 

 bay, or along a certain stretch of the coast, may be reduced to a considerable degree, and 

 although it may be perfectly true that the sea is practically inexhaustible of its fish, yet 

 when the fish of a particular region are cleaned out, there is no hope that others will come 

 in from the surrounding localities to their places, since those already related to a given 

 undisturbed area continue in that relationship, and have no inducement to change their 

 ground. It should therefore be understood that the exhaustion of a local fishery is not 

 like dipping water out of a bucket, where the vacancy is immediately filled from the 

 svirrounding body, but is more like taking lard out of a keg where there is space left that 

 does not become occiipied by anything else." 



The latest and most advanced investigators of the biology of the sea strongly confirm 

 Professor Baird's A'iews, and establish the law which he expressed in the foregoing- 

 terms. More and more it becomes evident that the migrations of fish which spawn near 

 the shore are of a limited character, being mainly from deep to shallow water and vice 

 versa ; that they are /ocal, in the sense of " having a definite relationship to a particular 

 area of sea-bottom," and that they return to the waters in which they had birth, and in 

 which their early days were spent, to perform the most important function of their 

 existence. The objection, therefore, so frequently raised, that it is useless to attempt 

 stocking artificially an area of sea, whether in bays or coastal fishing-grounds, as the young- 

 fry will disappear in the wide ocean, falls to the ground. The notion that these fishes 

 are wild ocean-rangers, constantly engaged in extensive migratory journeys, must be dis- 

 carded. No doubt there are pelagic fish which spawn in the open sea, far from shore ; 

 but all, or nearly all our valuable food fishes are local. Hence, by artificial means, we can 

 multiply their numbers in any given locality suited to their existence. 



Another mistaken view must also be got rid of namely, that exhausted fishing 

 grounds have only to be allowed to remain unfished for a time and they will recuperate 



