32 HISTORY OF TiJE FOUNDATION OF THE 



specimens they must catch them, and he ventured, in addi- 

 tion to the admirable arguments of the mover and seconder, 

 to suggest that these laboratories would be the means of 

 supplying not only our great national museums but all the 

 local museums throughout the British Islands with speci- 

 mens which would bring home to all the population in the 

 country a knowledge of the wonderful forms of sea life. 

 It was quite impossible at the present time to get a really 

 systematic collection of specimens. This alone would be a 

 good reason for establishing such laboratories as the new 

 Society contemplated. 



Dr. W. B. Carpenter, C.B., F.R.S., then moved :—'' That 

 it is desirable to found a Society, having for its object the 

 establishment and maintenance of at least ane such Labora- 

 tory at a suitable point on the coast, the resources of the 

 Laboratory, its boats, fishermen, working rooms, &c., being 

 open to the use of all naturalists under regulations hereafter 

 to be determined." He had for a great many years taken 

 a great interest in this particular subject, and would like to 

 supplement what Sir Lyon Playfair had stated in regard to 

 the American work of this kind, by reading the programme 

 laid down in the very first report which Professor Spencer 

 Baird, who had the organization of this Commission in the 

 year 1874, had issued : — 



Extract from the First Report of the United States Com- 

 mission OP Fish and Fisheries (1873), pp. xiii, xviii. 



" The objects of the investigation, as authorized 

 by Congress, were, first, to determine the facts as to 

 the alleged decrease of the food fishes; secondly, if 

 such a decrease be capable of substantiation, to ascer- 

 tain the causes of the same ; thirdly, to suggest methods 

 for the restoration of the supply ; and fourthly, to work 

 out the problems connected with the physical characters 

 of the seas adjacent to the fishing localities, and the 

 natural history of the inhabitants of the waters, 

 whether vertebrate or invertebrate, and the associated 

 vegetable life. 



" The history of the fishes themselves would not 



