452 OCEANOGRAPHY, BIONOMICS, AND AQUICULTURE. 



experience of it can scarcely realize how much time, energy, and money 

 it requires to keep up a series of dredging expeditions, now many 

 delays, disappointments, expensive accidents, and real hardships there 

 are, and how often the naturalist is tempted to leave unx>rofitable 

 grounds, which ought to be carefully worked over, for some more 

 favored spot where he knows he can count upon good spoil. And yet 

 it is very necessary that the whole ground — good or bad though it may 

 be from the zoological point of view — should be thoroughly surveyed, 

 physically and biologically, in order that we may know the conditions 

 of existence which environ our fishes on their feeding grounds, their 

 spawning grounds, their " nurseries," or whatever they may be. 



The British Government has done a noble piece of work, which will 

 redound to its everlasting credit, in providing for and carrying out the 

 Challenger expedition. Now that that great enterprise is completed, 

 and that the whole scientific world is united in appreciation of the 

 results obtained, it would be a glorious consequence, and surely a very 

 wise action in the interests of the national fisheries, for the Government 

 to fit out an expedition, in charge of two or three zoologists and fisheries 

 experts, to spend a couple of years in exploring more systematically 

 than has yet been done, or can otherwise be done, our British coasts 

 from the Laminarian zone down to the deep mud. No one could be 

 better fitted to organize and direct such an expedition than Dr. John 

 Murray. 



Such a detailed survey of the bottom and the surface waters, of their 

 conditions and their contents, at all times of the year for a couple of 

 years, would give us the kind of information we require for the solution 

 of some of the more difficult fishery j)roblems — such as the extent and 

 causes of the wanderings of our fishes, which " nurseries " are supplied 

 by particular spawning grounds, the reason of the sudden disappear- 

 ance of a fish, such as the haddock, from a locality, and in general the 

 history of our food fishes throughout the year. It is creditable to our 

 Government to have done the pioneer work in exploring the great ocean, 

 but surely it would be at least equally creditable to them — and perhaps 

 more directly and immediately profitable, if they look for some such 

 return from scientific work — to explore our own seas and our own sea 

 fisheries. 



There is still another subject connected with the fisheries which the 

 biologist can do much to elucidate — I mean the diseases of edible ani- 

 mals and the effect upon man of the various diseased conditions. It is 

 well known that the consumption of mussels taken from stagnant or 

 impure water is sometimes followed by severe symptoms of irritant 

 poisoning which may result in rapid death. This "musselling" is due 

 to the presence of an organic alkaloid or ptomaine, in the liver of the 

 mollusk, formed doubtless by a microorganism in the impure water. 

 It is clearly of the greatest importance to determine accurately under 

 what conditions the mussel can become infected by the microorganism, 



