47 
fishing our scientists would have rejoiced exceedingly. Had 
there been a small decrease they would have argued that if 
their advice had not been followed things would have been 
worse; but what istheactualstateof things? Naturalcauses, 
as far, apparently, beyond our ken as infinite intelligence 
itself, have quietly removed from the Irish Sea fishing 
grounds, worked by the Lancashire boats from Fleetwood, 
the myriads of adult whiting which occupied them when 
these meddlers with what they do not understand took the’ 
fish of the sea under their patronage. At that time the 
average catch of each Fleetwood boat was reckoned in tons 
per week. To-day and fortwo or three years back only an 
odd box now and then, just enough to add to our mystifica- 
tion by showing that the conditions of the sea are such 
that whiting can live there. Commercially the whiting’ 
fishery is for the present, and for some time has been, 
absolutely extinct. Where are those countless myriads of 
whiting gone? Not only has Nature removed them from 
the grounds, but she has quietly substituted in equal 
numbers another fish, the haddock, whose early life history 
is more obscure than that of the whiting, and as if in 
derision of the claims of the scientists, a fish that even 
they cannot pretend to be influenced in any way by what 
man has done. | 
The fishermen demand that Professor Herdman and 
Mr. Dawson shall account to them-for the fruits of their 
