in the waters not far from Woods Hole is rarely suspected 

 by summer tourists and boatmen. The efficiency of Verrill's 

 field explorations was facilitated by his skill in devising or 

 modifying collecting instruments and perfecting methods of 

 dredging and trawling. He remarks (Verrill, 1883, p. 65) 

 that the adoption of steel-wire rope for dredging from the 

 Fish Hawk greatly expedited the work. He was fully acquainted 

 with the latest improvements, in sounding, dredging, and 

 trawling techniques made in Europe. He immediately adopted 

 the new methods for the operations of the Fish Hawk. He must 

 be credited for designing new forms of traps for capturing 

 bottom animals, the "trawl wings'' for catching free-swimming 

 forms close to the bottom, and many other devices. The mop- 

 tangles that Verrill devised for catching spiny animals were 

 later adopted by the oyster growers in Long Island Sound for 

 removing starfish; this device is still used at the present time. 



Other important contributions of the Woods Hole Laboratory 

 made during the first years of its existence are the three papers 

 by Edwin Linton (1889, 1891, 1892) on entozoa of marine fishes. 

 These publications were the first in a long series of papers on 

 parasitic worms which Linton produced during more than 50 years 

 as a voluntary collaborator at the laboratory. 



The works of Harger (1880) on marine Isopoda and of 

 Farlow (187 3, 1882) on marine algae were the result of careful 

 taxonomic studies of the material collected by the station's 

 vessels. 



The work on fishes dealt primarily with the occurrence, 

 distribution, and development of the more important species. 

 Among the valuable contributions originated at the Woods Hole 

 Laboratory between the years 1871-87 were: "List of Fishes 

 Collected at Wood's Hole" (Baird, 187 3), "The Scup, The Blue- 

 Fish" (Baird, 187 3), "The Sea Fisheries of Eastern North 

 America" (Baird 1889); "Catalogue of the Fishes of the East 

 Coast of North America" (GUI, 187 3); "The Natural and Economical 

 History of the American Menhaden" (Goode, 187 9), "Materials 

 for a History of the Sword-Fish" (Goode, 1883); "Materials for 

 a History of the Mackerel Fishery" (Goode, Collins, Earll, and 

 Clark, 1884); "Embryography of Osseous Fisheries, with Special 

 Reference to the Development of the Cod" (Ryder, 1884). The 

 principal question regarding the causes of the decline in 

 commercial fish catches and fluctuations in their abundance, 

 could not be answered by these investigations and with the methods 

 available at Baird' s time. Even at the present time, in spite of 

 the outstanding progress made in fishery biology and the development 

 of statistical methods of studying fish populations, the causes 

 responsible for the wide fluctuations in the abundance of fish 

 remain undiscovered. 



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