some design probably against the fishers' interests, therefore interrogators must be baffled. In illustration I may mention that only a dozen years or so ago the streets of St. Andrews witnessed some high jinks. Amidst sounds of merriment an effigy of the Natural History Professor was paraded about and ultimately burnt on the sands. The University don had dared to announce the heretical notion that certain sea-fish spawn floated; they, the fishermen, knew better, and further concluded some evil intention lay in the Trawling Commission. The real victim enjoyed the joke, and went out to witness his incineration. Ask those fishermen to-day regarding the occurrence; they smile at the "lark," but swear by the Professor.
Among the Statutes of Edward III. were those relating to Herring, since which there have been a shower of others, besides Commissions on the same fish. Indeed it has mainly been through this shoal-roamer, the staple at least of the northern part of the kingdom, that in this country the naturalist has been called in as arbitrator—exactitude versus loose opinion—and Dr. Knox, Harry Goodsir, and Professors Allman and Huxley have acted as the thin end of the wedge.
In the issue of Couch's 'British Fishes' (1862–64) the author announces as his intention:—"It has been deemed of special importance to give with as much precision as possible an account of the characteristic habits of each species.... with frequent communications from practical fishermen of great intelligence."
About the same time Bertram, in his 'Harvest of the Sea,' in a prefatory note says he believes his is the "first work in which an attempt has been made to bring before the public in one view the present position and future prospects of the Food Fisheries of Great Britain."
What doubtless in some measure helped in due season to modify the attitude and hasten the change of British scientific men towards Fishery questions was the Norwegian Prof. Sars' discovery (1862) of the floating (pelagic) nature of the Cod's ova as contradistinguished to the sunken (demersal) nature of those of the Herring and presumably of other fishes.
It is due though to Frank Buckland to accentuate the circumstance that for a number of years, in and out of season as the case might be, he kept drumming into the ears of the public, in
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