clxxii GENERAL SUMMARY OE SCIENTIFIC AND 



minion and of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts 

 has been invoked to regulate the traffic. The methods to 

 be adopted will probably consist in the establishment of a 

 period during which no lobsters shall be captured, and pro- 

 hibiting the taking of female lobsters, or any males less than 

 eleven inches in length, or weighing less than a pound or a 

 pound and a half. Some idea may be gained of the magni- 

 tude of this interest by the statement, if correct, that 20,000 

 tons of lobsters were canned in 1873 in the British Provinces 

 alone. 



An elaborate article in the journal of the Scottish Mete- 

 orological Society gives the result of inquiries into the re- 

 lationship between meteorological conditions and the sea 

 fisheries, especially those of the herring ; and enough is 

 shown therein to indicate that this connection is closer than 

 lias been appreciated, and that in all probability a careful 

 observation of ocean temperatures will enable those interest- 

 ed to understand and anticipate the now apparently capri- 

 cious movements of the herring in their course to and from 

 the shores. 



In connection with the fisheries of the country, we may 

 perhaps not inappropriately include the interests connected 

 with the capture of the fur-seals of the Pribylov Islands in 

 Alaska. As is well known, these islands have been leased 

 to the Alaska Commercial Company, under certain condi- 

 tions; at first with the restriction of the number of captures 

 to 75,000 in the Island of St. Paul, and 25,000 in the Island 

 of St. George. Quite lately this has been changed so as to 

 allow the taking of 90,000 from the former and 10,000 from 

 the latter. The fur-seals continue to furnish a highly fash- 

 ionable article of clothing, and consequently are still in great 

 demand. A considerable business is also done in the manu- 

 facture of oil, although the great quantity obtained from 

 other sources has affected the price so greatly as to induce 

 the Alaska Company to bestow comparatively little atten- 

 tion to that branch of its business. 



The hair -seal fisheries of the Newfoundland seas were 

 much less productive than in 1873 ; indeed, the Newfoundland 

 government has become seriously alarmed at the sudden de- 

 crease, and proposes to institute an inquiry into the cause. 

 Several of the European nations interested in the subject are, 



