CHAPTER XIV 



INTRODUCTION TO THE FISHES 



EVERY year the study of Fishes, both fresh-Water and marine, 

 becomes of increasing importance, not only scientifically, but 

 economically. Those marketable fish which are dwellers in the 

 sea, and which form such an important part of our food supply, 

 are, thanks to modern methods of ice-packing and rapid transit, 

 so easily and cheaply procurable for the table, that the inhabi- 

 tants of our inland cities and towns probably never give the sub- 

 ject of our fishing industries a thought except perhaps to grumble 

 when a long spell of winter storms sends up the price of fish for 

 a day or two. And so, here in England, we are living to-day in a 

 sort of fool's paradise, so far as our fisheries are concerned, to 

 say nothing of a good many other important matters, content that 

 there is an abundance of fish for the present, leaving the future 

 to take care of itself. It is a suicidal policy, and one which will 

 cost us dearly in the years to come, if permitted to continue. 

 None are more ready to acknowledge it than the better educated 

 and more thoughtful of the men who are engaged in our great 

 fishing industries. They will tell you, in no measured terms, that 

 the old saying, "There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out 

 of it," can no longer be truthfully applied to certain species. This 

 is not the place to enter into a long discussion on fishery problems, 

 but the subject is so intimately connected with the study of the 

 life and habits of fishes that it cannot be entirely ignored. Thanks 

 to the energy and interest of Sir E. Ray Lankester, the Marine 

 Biological Association of the United Kingdom was founded in 

 1884, and has ever since its inception applied itself to the advance- 

 ment of our knowledge of the life and habits of the marketable 

 marine fishes, the organisms upon which they feed at various stages 

 of their life, their migrations, rate of growth, and the effects which 

 modern trawling is having upon their numbers. The results that 



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