294 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XII 



his scientific attainments, from 1863 to 1865 he had 

 been a member of the Commission which had conducted 

 an elaborate investigation into the condition of the 

 Fisheries of the United Kingdom, and had taken a large 

 share in the preparation of a Report, which notwith- 

 standing recent changes in law and policy remains the 

 ablest and most exhaustive document which has ever been 

 laid before Parliament on the subject. 



This protracted investigation had convinced Professor 

 Huxley that the supply of fish in the deep sea was 

 practically inexhaustible ; and that, however much it 

 might be necessary to enforce the police of the seas by 

 protecting particular classes of sea fishermen from injury 

 done to their instruments by the operations of other 

 classes, the primary duty of the legislature was to develop 

 sea fishing, and not to place restrictions on sea fishermen 

 for any fears of an exhaustion of fish. 



His scientific training, moreover, made him ridicule 

 the modern notion that it was possible to stock the sea 

 by artificial methods. He wrote to me, when the 

 Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 was in contemplation, 

 " You may have seen that we have a new Fish Culture 



Society. C talked gravely about our stocking the 



North Sea with cod ! After that I suppose we shall take 

 up herrings : and I mean to propose whales, which, as 

 all the world knows, are terribly over fished ! " And 

 after the exhibition was over he wrote to me again, with 

 reference to a report which the Commission had asked 

 me to draw up : "I have just finished reading your 

 report, which has given me a world of satisfaction. . . . 

 I am particularly glad that you have put in a word of 

 warning to the fish culturists." a 



He was not, however, equally certain that particular 



1 When I was asked to write the report on this Commission, I 

 said that I would do so if Sir E. Birkbeck, its chairman, and 

 Professor Huxley, both met me to discuss the points to be noticed. 

 The meeting duly took place : and I opened it by asking what was 



