MARKETABLE MARINE FISHES 



OF THE 



BRITISH ISLANDS 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORY OF MODERN INVESTIGATIONS OF THE SUBJECT 



Our knowledge of the natural history of the majority of our 

 most valuable marine food-fishes is of quite recent growth, and, 

 although now there is a good deal of it, much more is still 

 required. When I write our knowledge, I mean that which 

 has been obtained and published, for the number of those who have 

 made that knowledge their own is small indeed. Those to whom 

 the study of nature is a familiar pleasure, or the regular work of 

 life, are not a large class. On the other hand, those who handle 

 fish continually in the course of their daily business, whether in 

 the boat or in the market, have, for the most part, not yet 

 realised that any knowledge concerning fish which they do not 

 possess can be of any value. It can scarcely be expected 

 that the fisherman or fish merchant will spend his short and 

 hard-earned leisure moments in the study of the blue books and 

 technical memoirs in which the results of research are described ; 

 and when certain newly-established facts are brought before 

 them in other ways, it frequently happeiis that they either 

 deny these facts as contrary to their own experience, or turn 

 a deaf ear from the conviction that such matters are of no 

 practical importance. With reference to the contradiction of the 

 naturalist's conclusions, it may be urged that, although he may 

 not be able to climb the rigging of a smack, and is generally 



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