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the fittest." Such an argument cannot hold good respect- 

 ing fresh-water fisheries in populated districts, where man, 

 unchecked by wholesome restrictions, not only can, but 

 does, ruin fisheries. Can it be advanced that the balance 

 of nature is left unchanged when man commences to nsh 

 the sea with the sole desire to obtain all he is able ? This 

 cannot be, for in the open waters he kills his millions of 

 mackerel and herring which he requires as food, but he 

 takes little or no notice of the sharks and dog-fishes which 

 prey upon them, and are left to multiply, protection being 

 practically obtained by them due to the little use their 

 bodies are to man. Is not this mode of fishing destroying 

 the balance which I hold exists wherever nature and 

 nature's works are left entirely to nature's laws, unaltered 

 by the advent of predaceous man, but his rapacity at once 

 changes the normal conditions. Many of us must have 

 been struck by the instance adduced a short time since by 

 S:r Lyon Playfair, who, while arguing against regulating 

 fisheries, observed that we cannot alter the balance of 

 nature without causing mischief. He informed us that it 

 was within the sphere of his personal knowledge on the 

 west coast of Scotland, where fishermen for some cause 

 were not plying their occupation, that predaceous fishes 

 were depleting the breeding beds of the herring. Here 

 leaving the balance of nature to itself appears (according to 

 Sir L. Playfair's views) to have resulted in a loss to the 

 fisheries, but he argued that the fishermen should be per- 

 mitted to catch fishes all the year round. In fact, he 

 obtained, as a result of his observation, a regulation that 

 herrings ought not to be left alone at the breeding season, 

 and consequently they were fished subsequently at this time 

 of the year with the most favourable results. If facts and 

 results were as given, one would have imagined this advent 



