248 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



In taking a brief survey, therefore, of the reasons which 

 prompted our country to join the other nations in the investiga- 

 tion of the sea in 1902, it would appear that the main object was 

 the prospective benefit to the British Fisheries, the scientific in- 

 vestigation of which had for eighteen years been actively carried 

 out. It is also probable that the testing of the antagonistic 

 views, viz. — on the one hand, of the ' Resources of the Sea,' and, 

 on the other, of the ' Impoverishment of the Sea,' which is really 

 a revival of the old doubts and fears — may have influenced the 

 decision. It had, however, immediately been shown how un- 

 tenable the notion, for instance, of Dr. Garstang was— that, 

 because one hundred fishing-ships now catch what fifty did 

 before, the sea is impoverished. Nature was thus expected to 

 fill each square mile of the sea with fishes by measure, and send 

 its quota mechanically into each ship. The diminished catch in 

 each of the one hundred ships (supposing such did occur) would 

 be more in accordance with reason. Even the sea, by the laws 

 of nature, contains only a certain number of fishes at a given 

 time, and it should not be a matter for surprise that there are 

 fewer fishes, e. g. large flat-fishes, in an area after one hundred 

 ships have swept it, than after the operations of ten using a 

 similar method of capture. Yet it would be unsafe to speak 

 strongly of such diminution. A change from trawls to fixed nets, 

 or to bait, might upset the conclusions by the discovery of nume- 

 rous fishes. As Mr. Archer and Dr. Kyle assert, the average 

 catch per boat is insufficient to prove over-fishing. 



The task, then, undertaken by the British naturalists was 

 neither simple nor light, and there was no lack of courage in 

 affirming that within the two years (for which the Government at 

 first arranged) results would be forthcoming. A survey of the 

 problem presented several lines of action, most of which had 

 been laid before the Ichthyological Committee at the end of 

 1901. To the scientific investigator a careful and extended 

 survey of the main grounds frequented by fishermen in the 

 North Sea stands in the forefront, together with the distribution 

 of the food-fishes in the more distant waters. If, for instance, 

 the round-fishes stretched far outwards from our shores, anxiety 

 for the near grounds would be removed. This survey would 

 include the distribution of the eggs, larvae, and young of the 



