MUSEUMS AND RESEARCH 69 



but in reality it is most intimately related to and is dependent 

 on systematic zoology, for all economic work is based on a 

 knowledge of species and of their distribution. It is true that 

 the Imperial Bureau of Economic Entomology is quite distinct 

 from the Entomological Department of the Natural History 

 Museum, but it has made the Museum its headquarters in 

 order to use the collections that have been arranged by the 

 entomologists who are not specifically labelled " economic," 

 and here the entomologists of both departments co-operate 

 in the campaign against the insect enemies of man, especially 

 the carriers of disease and the destroyers of food. 



Insect pests are so numerous and may do such incalculable 

 damage if they are not held in check that the economic im- 

 portance of other groups of animals is rather overshadowed 

 by them. Nevertheless all animals have some relation to 

 human affairs and it may be of interest to enumerate some 

 of the ways in which the group that I have specially studied, 

 the Fishes, are of importance to man. In the first place, of 

 course, a great many kinds are used as food ; fishes also yield 

 a number of valuable products such as oil, glue, isinglass, 

 fertilisers etc. ; some species are important principally be- 

 cause they are eaten by food-fishes. A good deal of attention 

 has been given of late to fishes that eat mosquito larvae 

 and so help to check malarial fever. Again, as fishes can 

 swim, see and hear under water the naval engineer may 

 perhaps learn something from their form and structure, and 

 their coloration also is worth study, for many fishes are 

 camouflage experts. 



In all these ways fishes may be useful, but there are many 

 harmful species : quite a number have poisonous flesh ; some 

 will attack man directly if they find him in the water, either to 

 eat him or to inflict poisonous wounds ; others prey on food- 

 fishes or other animals of economic value ; fishes even cause 

 trouble by damaging submarine cables, and on several occasions 

 we have received at the Natural History Museum parts of 

 cables that had been bitten into by fishes which had left a 

 tooth behind ; sometimes the tooth has enabled us to identify 

 the species. 



