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other, and the more it was interfered with, the more mis- 

 chief resulted. Sometimes there was a cry for protective 

 laws, because the herring fishery varied as any other industry 

 varied according to circumstances. They did not always 

 know why it varied. For instance, Mr. Duff spoke about 

 the varying character of the herring, and a very capricious 

 fish was the usual term fishermen applied to it. But the 

 term caprice was merely the mode of concealing our 

 ignorance of its habits. If we knew its habits, and those 

 of its enemies, it would probably be found there was no 

 caprice in the matter. Sometimes herrings came in shoals 

 to particular parts of the coast, and other times they aban- 

 doned them for many years. The reason of that was not 

 known. It might be, for instance, that something had 

 happened to the small crustaceae and the sand-eels on the 

 particular part of the coast, and the herrings did not find 

 their natural food ; it might be that the enemies of the her- 

 rings had multiplied very much, and devoured in too large 

 quantities their own subsistences. Then the herrings de- 

 creased, but ultimately they increased again, because their 

 enemies having fed too largely upon them, they decreased 

 in number, and then the herrings had their turn again, 

 and so there was a continual scarcity and plenty in the 

 markets, sometimes prosperity and sometimes a panic, and 

 the herring in its action assisted in producing these cases of 

 prosperity and panic, just as if they were Lancashire manu- 

 facturers. It was needless, therefore, to make laws to try 

 and prevent man, who was such a very small factor in the 

 result, catching herrings when there were, all round the 

 herrings, enemies creating havoc infinitely greater. If any 

 lesson could be learnt from the interesting paper they had 

 listened to, it was that it would be much better to leave 

 these things to the laws of nature, which were far more 



