BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 343 



This includes the gathering of extensive statistics relative to the fish- 

 eries and the fish trade. 



In this way the Commission hopes to obtain an accurate knowledge 

 of the influence which man is capable of exercising on the decrease or 

 increase of fish; it also endeavors to make its work one of practical 

 usefulness by directing attention to fishing-apparatus which threatens 

 to cause the extinction of certain species of fish, and for which other, 

 less hurtful apparatus might easily be substituted. 



Recently Congress appropriated $60,000 tor gathering these statistics. 

 The report of these investigations comprises about 3,000 pages, with 

 700 to 800 engravings. Of this report 10,000 copies will be printed, 

 and freely distributed in the most liberal manner. A total sum of 

 $30,000 was appropriated for the publication of this work. 



After having given some idea of the extent of the worth of this com- 

 paratively young American Fish "Commission, and having anew assured 

 our readers — as will become still further evident — that its work has borne 

 rich fruit in all directions (which fact is also proved by the constantly 

 increased appropriation annually made for this Commission), a compar- 

 ison between America and the Netherlands — as regards activity in this 

 field, may not be out of place. The Netherlands have possessed since 

 the year 1857, and therefore for a period of more than twenty-five years, 

 its Board of Sea-fisheries. This Board was exclusively an advisory body, 

 advisory in the sense of directing the attention of the Government to 

 existing abuses or defects. In other words, it took the initiative in all 

 matters relating to the interests of the fisheries. Among the many im- 

 portant measures taken by the Government at the advice of this Board, 

 confining ourselves to the most recent times, we will mention the aboli- 

 tion of the Government stamp on the herring-barrels, which caused a 

 considerable increase in the quantity of herring exported from the 

 Netherlands and the law of 1881 regulating the fisheries in the Zu3 T der 

 Zee. 



With regard to this last-mentioned law, whose practical advantages 

 and disadvantages we will not discuss in this place, it would have been 

 desirable to consult naturalists and profit from their knowledge and ex- 

 perience. In fact, the need was felt of a firm scientific basis for those 

 rules and regulations which were to govern the fisheries. And for such 

 a basis there was hardly any material whatever. It became evident that 

 such material could not be obtained except by " aggressive biological 

 research," and that not even a beginning had been made with the neces- 

 sary investigations. 



America, however, had set the example. Encouraged thereby the 

 above-mentioned Board urged upon the Government the desirability of 

 establishing a permanent zoological station at someplace on the coast — 

 best at Nieuwediep — with a permanent director and a changing staff of 

 young and active assistants, for an exhaustive study of all the questions 

 relating to our coast fisheries, with a view of drawing up reliable regu- 



