THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 792.— June. 1907. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK IN THE SEA-FISHERIES. 



By Prof. McIntoss, M.D., LL.D., F.R.SS. L. & E., Gatty 

 Marine Laboratory, University, St. Andrews. 



Part I. 



Before proceeding with the main subject of this memoir — 

 viz. the light which science has thrown on the sea-fisheries of 

 our country — it may be well to take a brief glance at the condi- 

 tion of this great — it may almost be said national— industry from 

 the earlier times to the period when the aid of science was brought 

 to bear on it. 



As might be expected, the most remote past is veiled in 

 obscurity, for Britain had neither an Aristotle nor a Strabo, but 

 authors* from the third century onwards, such as Solinus and 

 Dion Cassius, as Dr. Fulton tells us, give occasional references 

 to sea-fishes as the food of certain of the natives, or as occurring 

 in numbers off the British coasts. Though the sea-fisheries of 

 the country doubtless became more important in the subsequent 

 centuries, they were far behind those of other nations, such as 

 the Scandinavians, who led the way in the Herring fishery, 

 and the Hanseatic leaguers, who supplied Catholic Europe with 

 Herrings. No nation, however, took a more prominent part than 



* An interesting series of articles by Dr. Fulton on this head appeared in 

 the ' Fish Trades Gazette ' for 1893, and from which some of the facts have 

 been drawn. I have to thank Dr. Williamson for kindly aiding me in this 

 respect. 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. XI., June, 1907. K 



