102 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



to the relations which the Cetaceans — large and small — have to 

 the marine fishes. Most of the Toothed Whales devour fishes or 

 cuttle-fishes ; certainly those of our coasts are chiefly piscivorous 

 or carnivorous. The effect of removing from two to five hun- 

 dred of these large fish-destroyers in a single season must, from 

 the standpoint of those who believe in the impoverishment of 

 the sea, give the food-fishes a better chance of survival. Yet no 

 change has ever been noticed in regard to increase or diminu- 

 tion. The swarms of Herrings and white fishes and the abund- 

 ance of Salmon remain as before. The same reflections arise 

 in considering the recent captures, at the various stations in 

 the British area, of the great Finners and Humpbacks (Whale- 

 bone Whales) in hundreds. Whilst some of these live largely 

 on crustaceans, such as the Euphausiacea, or "Krill " (those on 

 our coasts taking Meganyctiphanes norvegica), others frequently 

 devour Herrings and other fishes in quantities, the annual aggre- 

 gate being enormous. It has not been shown that the removal 

 of these has in any way modified the abundance or scarcity of 

 the sea-fishes, though their capture is unpopular with the 

 fishermen, perhaps on the ground of doing them service by 

 driving the shoals of Herrings nearer the coast. The destruc- 

 tion of the food-fishes by the two groups (Toothed and Whale- 

 bone Whales) probably equals that accomplished by man with 

 all his modern apparatus. Yet the wholesale removal of such 

 numbers of both kinds offish-destroyers makes no change in the 

 fish-supply. The resources of Nature are of so gigantic a kind 

 as to be practically unaffected. It is no refutation of this view 

 to point to the fact that in every civilized country the food- 

 fishes near the shore are fewer or more difficult to capture than 

 before, and this in countries where no trawling has occurred. 

 Every food-fish when molested becomes more wary, and, though 

 the larger forms are fewer in a given area which has been much 

 fished, yet there is no scarcity of fishes. Just as the resources 

 of the sea are not materially affected by the presence or absence 

 of the great fish -destroyers, so the persistent and widespread 

 efforts of man do not impoverish the sea to a serious extent. 

 The negative results of the present costly International Fisheries' 

 work and the now ominous silence on the head of the im- 

 poverishment of the sea (the mainspring of the undertaking) 



