the purpose of killing them. Now, he had been on 

 fishing-boats a good deal, and he thought the fisher- 

 men would say that a far easier plan would be to put the 

 heel of his boot on the top of the fish and crush it ; as to 

 carrying buckets of hot water about in trawlers to kill star- 

 fish it was not a plan which, in his opinion, the fisherman 

 would be likely to take to. Then, again, strong remarks 

 were made about what fishermen said about the spawn ; 

 but the word spawn has a little altered its meaning of late 

 years. In old works it appeared over and over again, 

 and he thought, even in papers read there, it was evident 

 that spawn in fishermen's language meant either the ova 

 or young of fish : so that fishermen had not changed their 

 views upon this point. On turning to the late Mr. Buck- 

 land's and other reports, it would always be found that the 

 word spawn meant the young of the fish as well as the eggs. 

 Coming back to the question of the society which was 

 proposed, and which he believed all would wish to see, 

 viz. a fishery society for the purpose of collecting infor- 

 mation respecting fish and fisheries, he understood that 

 Mr, Fryer intended that it should tell the fishermen what to 

 do and what to leave undone, but it was to be careful not 

 to propose to foster the fisheries. He was not exactly sure 

 what was meant by not fostering the fisheries. Did he 

 mean they were to have nothing to do with artificial propa- 

 gation of food -fishes, or did he mean pecuniary assistance .<* 

 If he meant that nothing was to be done with reference to 

 the raising of the young of food-fishes, he could not help 

 thinking that he was taking a very erroneous view. One 

 of the most important questions for consideration at the 

 present time was whether or not it was advisable to hatch 

 marine fishes artificially, and in that way to stock the in- 

 shore waters. He imagined that questions of fisheries 



