Early in December, 1879, an apparent epidemic of suicide attacked the herrings and sprats in Deal Roads, and they rushed ashore in such myriads at Walmer that the fishermen got tired of carting them off, and they were left on the beach for all who cared to help themselves. Nature seems now and then to put bounds to over‐population, but if this be the case, no herring famines need be feared, for economical Nature would never have played into the hands of the fishermen who are always at war with her. Such wholesale suicides occur among other forms of animal life. In Africa regiments of ants have been seen deliberately marching into streams, where they were immediately devoured by fish. Rats have migrated in myriads, stopping nowhere, neither day nor night, and have been preyed upon by both large birds and beasts of prey. In the Seychelles some years ago several hundred turtles conspired to die together on the island in front of the harbour, and carried out their decision. Were they the victims of hydrophobia, delirium tremens, or some other disease? Even the gay and sprightly butterfly has been known to migrate in immense clouds from the land straight out to sea, without the remotest chance of ever reaching another shore. What could be the reason for such a suicidal act? It would be difficult to over‐estimate the value of deep sea fisheries; in which, according to trustworthy statistics, England and Wales alone employ nearly 15,000 boats, with nearly double that number of “hands,” added to whom are over 14,000 others to whom they give occasional employment on the coasts. The report of Commissioners Frank Buckland and Spencer Walpole, who were instructed to investigate the modes of fishing in the two countries named, and how far they were conducted on proper principles, has therefore both importance and interest. It was feared that in certain directions deep‐sea fishing, which undeniably leads to the capture of myriads of young and useless fish, might have the same effect as wasteful fishing and dredging did in the case of the salmon and oyster.