1881 WORK AS FISHERY INSPECTOR 293 



the country took up twenty -eight days between 

 March and September this year. 



Sir Spencer Walpole, who was his colleague for 

 some years, has kindly given me an account of their 

 work together. 



Early in 1881, Sir William Harcourt appointed 

 Professor Huxley one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of 

 Fisheries. The office had become vacant through the 

 untimely death, in the preceding December, of the late 

 Mr. Frank Buckland. Under an Act, passed twenty 

 years before, the charge of the English Salmon Fisheries 

 had been placed under the Home Office, and the Secretary 

 of State had been authorised to appoint two Inspectors 

 to aid him in administering the law. The functions of 

 the Home Office and of the Inspectors were originally 

 simple, but they had been enlarged by an Act passed in 

 1873, which conferred on local conservators elaborate 

 powers of making bye-laws for the development and 

 preservation of the Fisheries. These bye-laws required 

 the approval of the Secretary of State, who was necessarily 

 dependent on the advice of his Inspectors in either 

 allowing or disallowing them. 



In addition to the nominal duties of the Inspectors, 

 they became by virtue of their position the advisers 

 of the Government on all questions connected with the 

 Sea Fisheries of Great Britain. These fisheries are 

 nominally under the Board of Trade, but, as this Board 

 at that time had no machinery at its disposal for the 

 purpose, it naturally relied on the advice of the Home 

 Office Inspectors in all questions of difficulty, on which 

 their experience enabled them to speak with authority. 



For duties such as these, which have been thus briefly 

 described, Professor Huxley had obvious qualifications. 

 On all subjects relating to the Natural History of Fish 

 he spoke with decisive authority. But, in addition to 



