79 
In regard to the work being done at present, what does it 
amount to, speaking commercially, and as a return for the 
great expenditure? Some monographs of semi-microscopic 
crustaceans, telling the number of their limbs, and giving 
pretty woodcuts of them; interesting accounts of how a 
great steamer set little bottles afloat in the various cross- 
currents of the Irish Sea, &c.; all which may be interesting 
in its way, and is valuable for our purpose, as it demonstrates 
their absolute ignorance of the very first elements of.their 
problem, but commercially is playing with the merest out- 
skirts of their subject. I fail to see the commercial use of 
repeating ad nauseum the examination of the stomachs of fish, 
and carefully noting the exact percentage of each kind of 
food found in them, unless for some special purpose. 
The general food of sea fishes was sufficiently well 
known for all practical, as distinguished from purely 
scientific, purposes, five-and-twenty years since. Judging 
from the bottles in the Fishery Exhibition, I should say a 
great deal has been forgotten since then. But what does it 
amount to? Fish, like Homo sapiens, have a wide range of 
diet, and each individual fish, like each man, gets his living 
by minding his own business and finding the best pasture 
he can. The diet of man is fairly understood, but suppose 
Mr. Dawson let down his net and took a dozen aldermen 
returning from a Lord Mayor’s feast, and then took a drag 
through a workhouse and captured a dozen paupers. He 
