1 40 BRITISH FISHERIES 



I have referred in the briefest possible manner 

 to the scientific work of the Kiel Kommission. 

 It is necessary to mention that a large propor- 

 tion of it has been of academic, rather than 

 of what we speak of in England as "practical," 

 interest. This distinction, however, is more 

 apparent than real. In Germany, fisheries scien- 

 tific work has always been approached in a 

 different spirit from that which prevails in 

 England, where we are continually confronted 

 with a desire on the part of the official people 

 that scientific work on which public money is 

 to be spent should have a direct economic or 

 practical object and outcome ; and where scien- 

 tific men are compelled to make this an excuse 

 for official encouragement and support. It is 

 to the existence of this spirit that the inadequate 

 nature of English fisheries investigation is due. 

 No one, for instance, a few years ago would 

 have suggested the investigation of the function 

 of respiration in marine fishes and molluscs, 

 or the bacteriology of the alimentary canal of 

 these animals, at the public expense, without 

 serious misgivings and a kind of apologetic tone 

 in his advocacy. Nevertheless, at the present 

 day, when questions of sewage contamination and 

 its effect on fish-life and public health are 

 receiving so much attention, the want of data 

 on just these subjects is most seriously felt. 

 One must, of course, distinguish somewhere a 



