THE LIFE-HISTORY OF THE SALMON. 301 



tors. Hydrographically, all these observations are of great 

 interest and merit respect, but as an international method of 

 solving the fisheries' problems they have not been a success. It 

 is fruitless to ask these to explain why the larval and young 

 Plaice year after year invariably seek the margin of the sandy 

 beach, why the young Cod keeps to deep water till it is an inch 

 in length and then comes to the margin of the rocks, going out 

 again as it gets older, why the young Haddock, on the other 

 hand, remains in deep water till it is four to five inches in 

 length, when it passes to the inshore waters. The laws that 

 guide these and similar cases are beyond the influences of 

 currents, temperatures, or salinities. 



The international investigators, who promised results of 

 importance within two years, after fully eleven years' labours 

 have at last narrowed and focussed their recommendations to 

 the protection of the Plaice, chiefly by a size limit, an idea long 

 known, and indeed put in force by certain nations about a 

 quarter of a century ago ; this and the camaraderie of the 

 fisheries' representatives, scientific and otherwise, is perhaps 

 the main result of an expenditure of more than £100,000 by our 

 own country ! Yet it is only fair to add that the Danish ship, 

 with Dr. Johs. Schmidt on board, has notably extended our 

 knowledge of the life-history of the Common Eel which spawns 

 only in mid-Atlantic, the young thereafter traversing the entire 

 length of the Mediterranean, besides supplying the whole of the 

 western border of Europe. 



A calm survey of the reproduction of fishes thus opens up a 

 vast field for reflection, and impresses the observer at once with 

 the illimitability of Nature's resources and the fine adjustment 

 in every case to the needs of the species. Whether conditions 

 so remarkable were the result of gradual evolution or formed by 

 more or less sudden leaps has not been fully investigated. Yet 

 there cannot be a doubt that through all the mazes of those 

 wonderful complexities a Master Mind has ruled what was best 

 for each, so that not one of the recent species has failed to 

 preserve its existence under the most diverse circumstances, and 

 with the increasing drain on its numbers by the cupidity of man. 



