SOME PROBLEMS OF THE SEA. 5 



The methods of collecting you adopt will, of 

 course, depend upon your object in collecting. If 

 you want large numbers of specimens you will 

 adopt one method, and you will collect when, 

 where and how you find you can get the greatest 

 abundance. If, on the other hand, you want as many 

 kinds as possible, you will adopt most varied methods, 

 now one and now another, and you will collect in a very 

 different manner in the different seasons and localities. 

 But, so far, you will only get what may be called quali- 

 tative results, and that is what most naturalists have been 

 content with in the past. Edward Forbes, the pioneer of 

 dredging in this country, Wyville Thomson, the leader 

 and hero of the " Challenger " expedition, Alder and 

 Hancock, Carpenter and Jeffreys, Hincks and the Bradys, 

 the well-known authors of our most authoritative works 

 on marine biology, have all collected in the manner I 

 have indicated above and have recorded qualitative results 

 only. They have told us, in their monographs and reports, 

 about the various kinds of animals found, but have only 

 given vague indications of the relative abundance, of the 

 seasonal variations, of the topographical distribution and 

 of the bionomics of their environment. 



Is any other kind of result attainable by collecting 

 methods? That is one of the most important and funda- 

 mental questions which the marine biologist of the present 

 day has to consider. When the application of marine 

 biological enquiries to the problems of the fishing 

 industries came to be investigated it was realised that a 

 quantitative knowledge of such organisms as constitute 

 the food, the enemies and the fellow competitors of our 

 marketable fishes was desirable if not essential. Of these 

 matters we then were, and still are, very ignorant. Lord 

 Onslow, our first Minister of Fisheries, in opening, a year 



