BIOLOGICAL LABOEATOET. 135 



from his friends around him that it was admirably equipped 

 and supplied with all the apparatus required for these 

 investigations. For this result they were indebted to the 

 Prime Warden and his colleagues, and also to another 

 distinguished Company in the City, and further, to the 

 munificent donation of a gentleman of this locality, whom 

 he was proud to see among them that day. If funds were 

 wanting to carry on a work that had been inaugurated 

 under such favorable auspices, he sincerely hoped that they 

 would be found, and that Mr. Bourne, the able curator of 

 the institution — would have a successful career before him, 

 both from a scientific and practical point of view. Perhaps 

 practical results might not be expected, but he would recall 

 the interesting- remarks made by Sir Lyon Playfair — who he 

 regretted was not present — of how the American laboratories 

 succeeded in artificially producing immense numbers of cod 

 (which sometimes left the shores of the New England coast 

 for the colder shores of Newfoundland), to the great benefit 

 of the consumer. Again, a certain fish much esteemed on 

 those coasts, the American shad, required for the fertiliza- 

 tion of its egg's a certain condition of temperature, and 

 the Commission was able to hatch them when under certain 

 conditions of climate they would not have been hatched 

 naturally. These were striking instances of what science 

 was able to do, and he felt certain that from that Laboratory 

 numberless suggestions would emanate as the habits of 

 various fish became thoroughly known and investigated. 

 They would ascertain what grounds the fishes liked, what 

 foods they liked, what were the causes of their migration ; 

 very likely would improve the fisheries themselves ; but, 

 still more, might make regulations to prevent the fish being 

 unduly disturbed or destroyed at wrong seasons. These 

 were all things which would develop themselves in future ; 

 but before concluding he should like to say one word more 

 on the purely scientific aspect of the Laboratory, though, per- 

 haps, he was a little ovei'-bold in alluding to it. Biological 

 research is the highest though most complicated of any branch 

 of science, and when they considered the large amount of 

 organic life in the sea — forms leading up from the lowest and 



