182 



Part III 



, — Seventh Annual lteport 



SECTION B— BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS. 



I. INQUIRIES INTO THE NATURE OF THE FOOD, THE 

 SPAWNING, HABITS, &c, OF MARINE FOOD-FISHES. 

 By T. Wemyss Fulton, M.B. 



I. Introductory. 



It has been long admitted by all scientific fishery authorities that 

 exact knowledge of the food, propagation, and habits of fishes is of 

 fundamental importance in furnishing a trustworthy basis for the proper 

 regulation of fisheries, and in the selection of means for the active pro- 

 motion of fishery interests. Any one who cares to examine the 

 numerous and various laws which have been passed by the Legislature for 

 the regulation or ostensible improvement of sea fisheries will find ample 

 evidence that they have too frequently been founded upon misconception 

 or error. It goes without saying that any measures that may be taken 

 to augment the supply of fish, such as systematic culture, must be based 

 upon accurate knowledge of their life-history. In recent years considerable 

 progress has been made in this department of fishery work. The 

 organisms which constitute the food of fishes have been, to some extent, 

 investigated ; and several valuable papers on this subject have appeared 

 in previous Reports of the Fishery Board.* 



Researches on the nature of the ova, the embryology, and development 

 of many of the food-fishes have also been extensively carried on ; and 

 these have been frequently shown to have an immediate practical import- 

 ance in the consideration of fishery questions, as, for example, the 

 demonstration by Sars, Ryder, Raffaele, Ewart, M'lntosh, Hensen and 

 others, that the spawn of almost all the economic fishes is buoyant and 

 floats at or near the surface of the sea. 



But the wider and more complicated questions in connection with the 

 study of fishes and other marine forms under natural conditions in the sea 

 — their distribution, migrations, mode, time, and place of propagation, 

 &c, notwithstanding their great importance, alike from a scientific and 

 practical point of view, have hitherto seldom engaged the continuous atten- 

 tion of naturalists. This has resulted partly from the difficulties which 

 surround work of this kind, and partly from the difficulty of independent 

 workers carrying on extensive inquiries and researches bearing on a wide field 

 for a prolonged period. It might be supposed that on many of these points 

 fishermen, who are almost daily engaged in the capture of fish, would be 

 able to furnish valuable and trustworthy information. But a perusal of 

 the evidence led before the various Commissions, which have during the 

 last ten or fifteen years been from time to time engaged in fishery inquiries, 

 reveals a remarkable opposition of opinion, and frequently great ignorance 



* Fourth Report, p. 100, 1886 ; Fifth Report, pp. 317, 326, 1887 ; Sixth Report, 

 Part Hi., p. 225, 1888. 



