SUMMARY AND GENERAL REPORT. 



The Report this year is taken up almost entirely with papers 

 dealing with the results of the investigations relating to herrings. 



The first paper, by Mrs. Cowan, gives an account of the investi- 

 gations made in 1918. Thirteen samples were examined, the 

 total number of herring being 3,000, and included two samples 

 which were measured according to the agreed upon methods for 

 determining racial characters. The first sample of the season 

 presented herring, 46 per cent, of which had four winter rings, 

 but the rest indicated a return to the conditions so characteristic 

 of the Northumberland Coast herring, the predominant age-group 

 of which is three winter-ring. As will be seen, moreover, the general 

 notes showed that the herring were immature, the gonads being 

 usually in stages I. and IT. Only one landing, that of July 29th, 

 was observed to be in a state of approaching maturity. 



This is followed by a paper by Mr. Storrow, who returned 

 to the Laboratory in February of this year, in which the attempt 

 is made to consider as a whole the results obtained during the years 

 1912 to 1918 from the standpoint of age, and the growth up to 

 the formation of the first winter ring. We were led to make this 

 approach to an anal^^sis of our records from the consideration 

 that the growth to the first Avinter ring would tend to determine 

 the source of the immature herring which ai'e summer migrants 

 to our coast. 



The Northumberland Coast herrings may be defined as a 

 shoal of young herrings, having for their predominant year class 

 fish with three winter rings. Following the restricted fishing of 

 1915, herrings with four winter rings predominated in 1916 and 

 1917. Few herrings occur in the samples with five or more winter 

 rings, and, on the other hand, the number with two winter rings 

 gives no indication of the abundance of fish with three winter 

 rings to be expected in the following year. The small number 

 of fish with two winter rings is not due to the selective power 



