OCEANOGRAPHY, BIONOMICS, AND AQUICULTURE. 451 



can be done — tliat this fish can be hatched or that shellfish reared — 

 under certain conditions which promise to be an industrial success, 

 then the matter should be carried out by the Government 1 or by capi- 

 talists ou a sufficiently large scale to remove the risk of results being 

 vitiated by temporary accident or local variation in the conditions. It 

 is contrary, however, to our English traditions for Government to help 

 in such a matter, and if our local sea fisheries committees have not the 

 necessary powers nor the available funds, there remains a splendid 

 opportunity for opulent landowners to erect sea-fish hatcheries on the 

 shores of their estates, and for the rich merchants of our great cities 

 to establish aquiculture in their neighboring estuaries, and by so doing 

 instruct the fishing population, resuscitate the declining industries, 

 and cultivate the barren shores — in all reasonable probability to their 

 own ultimate profit- 

 In addition to the farming of our shores, there is a great deal to be 

 done in promoting the fishing industries on the inshore and offshore 

 grounds along our coast, and in connection with such work the first 

 necessity is a thorough scientific exploratiou of our British seas by 

 means of a completely fitted dredging and trawling expedition. Such 

 exploration can only be done in little bits, spasmodically, by private 

 enterprise. From the time of Edward Forbes it has been the delight 

 of British marine zoologists to explore, by means of dredging from 

 yachts or hired vessels during their holidays, whatever areas of the 

 neighboring seas were open to them. Some of the greatest names in 

 the roll of our zoologists, and some of the most creditable work iu 

 British zoology, will always be associated with dredging expeditions. 

 Forbes, Wyville Thomson, Carpenter, Gwyn Jeffreys, Mcintosh, and 

 Norman — one can scarcely think of them without recalling — 



" Hurrah for the dredge, with its iron edge, 

 And its mystical triangle, 

 And its hided net, with meshes set, 

 Odd fishes to entangle!" - 



Much good pioneer work in exploration has been done in the past by 

 these and other naturalists, and much is now being done locally by 

 committees or associations — by the Dublin Eoyal Society on the west 

 of Ireland, by the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth, by the 

 Fishery Board in Scotland, and by the Liverpool Marine Biology Com- 

 mittee in the Irish Sea; but few zoologists or zoological committees 

 have the means, the opportunity, the time to devote, along with their 

 professional duties, to that detailed, systematic survey of our whole 

 British sea area which is really required. Those who have not had 



'We require in England a central hoard or Government department of fisheries, 

 composed in part of scientific experts, and that not merely for the purpose of impos- 

 ing and enforcing regulations, hut still more, in order that research into fisheries 

 prohlems may he instituted and aquicultnral experiments carried out. 



2 The Dredging Song. (See " Memoir of Edward Forbes," p, 247.) 



