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392 his own humorous but vigorous fashion, the importance and necessity of Sea-fishery investigations. His communications more often appeared in 'The Field' and 'Land and Water,' and occasionally from their literary style suggested a smack of the charlatan. But the best evidence of the earnestness and worth of the man was the devotion to his Fish-cultural Museum at South Kensington, ultimately endowed and bequeathed by him to the nation.

A wholesome impetus was also given to fish studies by F.M. Balfour's Monograph on Elasmobranchs, quickly succeeded by his Treatise on Comparative Embryology; Buckland and Walpole's Government Report 'On Sea Fisheries of England and Wales' (1879); Dr. Günther's 'Study of Fishes'; and Dr. Day's 'British Fishes,' but especially Buckland's Appendices (II.–IV.) of Report, pressed home the subject of our Economic Sea Fish.

The fishing industry itself (chiefly Grimsby and Hull trawlers), on account of the moot question of deterioration of the Sea Fisheries, and supposed relation of this to the capture and sale of immature fish, resolved itself into a National Sea Fisheries Protection Association, with affiliated branches throughout the kingdom. Their conferences and public agitation no doubt had considerable influence in after-movements of corporate bodies and the Government.

At this juncture came the Norwich and Edinburgh, followed by the London International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883, with its abundance of foreign and American element; the latter even in certain sections of food-fish and appliances far outstripping the English collections. Much of the Exhibition literature and conferences was of a practical kind, widening yet urging the current of British Fish industry in the new direction.

Still one thing was manifest, viz. "That our knowledge of the habits, time, and place of spawning, food peculiarities of the young, migrations, &c, of the fish which form the basis of British fisheries is lamentably deficient, and that without further knowledge any legislation or attempts to improve our fisheries by better modes of fishing, or protection, or culture, must be dangerous and indeed unreasonable."

But the echoes of the consensus of opinion at the Fisheries Conferences, as above quoted, had hardly died away ere the said