». — ZOOLOGY. 80 



where the damage is due to association between plant and animal pests. 

 Insects are, perhaps, the worst offenders, and om- basal knowledge of 

 them as living organisms — they can do no damage when dead, and 

 perhaps pinned in our showcases — is due to Eedi, Schwammerdam , 

 and Eeaumur in the middle of the seventeenth century. Our present 

 successful honey production is founded on the curiosity of these men in 

 respect to the origin of life and the generations of insects. The fact 

 tliat most of the dominant insects have a worm (caterpillar or maggot) 

 stage of growth, often of far longer duration than that of the insects, 

 has made systematic descriptive work on the relation of worm and 

 insect of peculiar importance. I hesitate, however, to refer to catalogues 

 in which perhaps a million different forms of adults and young are 

 described. Nowadays we know, to a large degree, with what pests we 

 deal and we are seeking remedies. We fumigate and we spray, spending 

 millions of money, but the next remedy is in the use of free-living 

 enemies or parasites to prey on the insect pests. The close correlation 

 of anatomy with function is of use here in that life histories, whether 

 parasitic, carnivorous, vegetarian, or saprophagous, can be foretold in 

 liy maggots from the structure of the front part of their gut (pharynx) ; 

 we know whether any maggot is a pest, is harmless, or is beneficial. 



I won't disappoint those who expect me to refer more deeply to 

 science in respect to fisheries, but its operations in this field are less 

 known to the public at large. The opening up of our north-western 

 grounds and banks is due to the scientific curiosity of Wyville Thomson 

 and his confreres as to the existence or non-existence of animal life 

 in the deep sea. It was sheer desire for knowledge that attracted 

 a host of inquirers to investigate the life history of I'iver eels. The 

 wonder of a fish living in our shallowest pools and travelling two 

 or three thousand miles to breed, very likely on the bottom in 2,000 

 fathoms, and subjected to pressures varying from 14 lb. to 2 tons per 

 square inch, is peculiarly attractive. It shows its results in regular 

 eel farming, the catching and transplantation of the baby eels out of 

 the Severn into suitable waters, which cannot, by the efforts of Nature 

 alone, be sure of their regular supply. Purely scientific observations 

 on the life histories of flat fish — these were largely stimulated by the 

 scientific curiosity induced by the views of Lamarck and Darwin as 

 to the causes underlying their anatomical development — ^and on the 

 feeding value and nature of Thisted Bredning and the Dogger Bank, 

 led to the successful experiments on transplantation of young plaice 

 to these grounds and the phenomenal growth results obtained, particu- 

 larly on the latter. Who can doubt that this ' movement of herds ' 

 is one of the first results to be applied in the farming of the North 

 Sea as soon as the conservation of our fish supply becomes a question 

 of necessity? 



The abundance of mackerel is connected with the movements of 

 Atlantic water into the British Channel and the North Sea, movements 

 depending on complex astronomical, chemical, and physical conditions. 

 They are further related to the food of the mackerel, smaller animal 

 life which dwells only in these Atlantic waters. These depend, as 

 indeed do all animals, on that living matter which possesses chlorophyll 



