216 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



The region between the tides and within wading distance 

 of the low water mark is especially well adapted to this 

 kind of work. For the various members of the association 

 can here be studied to greatest advantage; and each sand- 

 bar and muddy cove, every rocky, boulder-strewn, tide- 

 beset point acts as a center for that association of animals 

 best suited to its nature, and therefore as an ecological unit 

 in the sum total of oceanic food supply. 



That this close dependence of the fisheries on the study 

 of ecology has long been appreciated by the United States 

 Bureau of Fisheries is evident from the extensive biological 

 and fish-cultural researches along our coast in which its 

 staff has so successfully engaged for so many years past. 



The public at large, however, is so accustomed to regard 

 the individual animal as a unit in the natural world, that 

 considerable misapprehension is prevalent as to the import- 

 ance of researches on other than the socalled "useful" ani- 

 mals. Every possible means should be taken to correct 

 this fundamental error, and to emphasize the economic posi- 

 tion of the animal association rather than the individual in 

 the economy of nature. With the spread of this point of 

 view there would come about a more intelligent coopera- 

 tion on the part of the public with the efforts of the gov- 

 ernment and of the fisheries organizations of the country 

 to preserve, propagate, and properly utilize our marine and 

 aquatic resources, and would facilitate the legislation needed 

 to realize these ends. 



This same idea of interdependence and that the individual 

 and not the association is the unit among animals should 

 also be one of the most emphasized lessons in the nature 

 study of our schools, that the coming generations, in whose 

 hands will be the progressively more crucial conservation 

 problems of the future, may grow into their responsibility 

 with this point of view of the natural world as a part of 

 their initial equipment. The American Museum of Na- 

 tural History is already making definite efforts along this 

 line of education, by installing ecological groups represent- 



