FISH IN THE FUTURE. 155 



every peasant might have a fowl in his pot. We are 

 sanguine that salmon shall again smoke on many a 

 farmer's table, and even find its way to the kitchen and 

 the bothy ; that oysters shall be multiplied countlessly 

 on many a depopulated scalp ; that superior species of 

 fish shall swarm in many of our streams ; and that our 

 population generally shall become ichthyophagous to 

 an extent as yet unknown. 



Does any one ask a reason for this faith in the 

 increase of fishes ? Did we not read, in an Edin- 

 burgh newspaper, an advertisement headed "Fish 

 versus Butcher-meat/' with the pleasant notification, 

 that cod and skate, haddock and halibut, might be 

 had at from 2d. to 3d. a-pound? Did we not read 

 of the great joy in a fishing village on account of 

 the capture of a skate so huge as to be a burden to 

 three lusty fishermen, though this be a fish generally of 

 small repute in Scotland? And, greatest marvel of all, 

 have not her Majesty's faithful Commons benignantly 

 thought of the multitudes living on short commons, 

 opposed the Government, and victoriously supported 

 Mr Fenwick's motion for a commission to inquire into 

 the means of improving the sea-fisheries of Great Bri- 

 tain and Ireland ? In spite of those who think that the 

 end of the world is at hand, we really believe, with 

 Galileo, that it is moving, and in the right direction too 

 not to perdition, but in the divinely-appointed path 

 of procreation and progress. The mission of human 

 beings is to people the earth. In fulfilling it they 

 must learn to reap crops alike on land and water : in 

 both seed must be cast. And if we have not lost all 

 faith in Providence, and in the assertions of philoso- 

 phers seriously addressing themselves to the question 

 how food is to be found commensurate with the increase 

 of the world's population, we may confidently expect 

 an ample reward to the labours of aquceculture. 



"We are," says Mr Buckland, "for the most part 

 fully cognisant of the inhabitants of the land, but how 



