48 The hish Naturalist. February, 



Ulster needs to be attended to as well. Its fisheries require 

 to be developed, and very likely in course of time they will 

 have to be saved from overfishing. They should certainly 

 be carefully watched. 



The fish of any district require local study. The size of 

 maturity in the Plaice, for instance, is verj^ different in the 

 English Channel from what it is in the North Sea. Similarly, 

 there are marked differences in the times of spawning offish, 

 crabs, &c., at different parts of the British coasts. Such 

 differences become of great importance whenever there is any 

 talk of restrictive legislation ; when, for example, it is pro- 

 posed to have a size-limit or a close-time. 



Knowledge that is less directly useful, how^ever, is also of 

 interest to the student of fisheries, and the Belfast naturalists 

 could do valuable work, even if they never tackled any of the 

 greater fishery problems. The task of identifying the 

 contents of the tow-net and dredge is still a difficult one, and 

 in particular the identification of larval forms may be men- 

 tioned as likely to furnish material for many students. The 

 purely economic zoologist will be grateful for any help in 

 this direction. He must learn to know what he is handling, 

 whether it be of direct use to man or not. 



The first definite step towards the formation of the new 

 Biological Society was taken in December, when the Council 

 of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society 

 called a meeting of delegates from itself, the Queen's College, 

 and the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club to consider the subject. 

 The delegates heartily approved of the inauguration of an 

 Association for the study of the fauna and flora of our seas 

 and fresh-water loughs ; and committees are now at work 

 arranging to give effect to this scheme. 



Probably the new Association will from the first not con- 

 fine its labours to salt-water forms, but will devote a con- 

 siderable amount of attention to the fresh-water loughs of 

 Ulster. Lough Neagh and several other of the larger sheets 

 of water in the district present an attractive field for investi- 

 gation. Both the pure naturalist and the student of 

 economics will find much work to be done in these waters. 

 The habits of the Pol Ian and the Eel are little known, and 



