V 



THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 823.— January, 1910. 



A BEIEF SKETCH OF THE BED OE PEECIOUS 



COEAL. 



By Prof. McIntosh, M.D., LL.D., F.B.S. 



Gatty Marine Laboratory, St. Andrews. 



" The capture of marine products for food or for commerce 

 bar in some cases been carried on for centuries before science 

 stepped in to ascertain their nature, map out their life-histories, 

 and indicate the true course for legislative interference. The 

 fishing for the red coral of commerce in this respect agrees with 

 that for the food-fishes. Both had been carried on for centuries 

 before they attracted the earnest attention of the scientific, and 

 both are examples of the long-continued prevalence of error, 

 and, in the case of the fishes, even culpable lack of knowledge 

 about a food-supply so important. Indeed, the application of 

 science to the problem of the food-fishes is of much more recent 

 date than that of the coral of commerce, just as if personal 

 adornment and not practical utility were of primary importance 

 in the world."* 



From one point of view there is, in the scientific history of 

 the two fisheries, certain elements in common which cannot but 

 strike the thoughtful observer, and though in the one case they 

 assume the form -of dogged adherence to preconceived and 

 erroneous interpretations, and on the other consist of a choice 

 of crude beliefs often interwoven and warped by political 

 exigencies, yet in both the same obstinate refusal to accept the 

 scientific position is manifest. 



* ' Eesources of the Sea,' p. 11. 

 Zool. 4th ser. vol. XIV.. January, 1910. b 



