III. 



The Distribution of Food-Fishes in Relation 

 to their Physical Surroundings. 



SOME twenty years ago the Scottish Meteorological Society 

 appointed a Committee to cooperate with the Fishery Board for 

 Scotland in investigating the question whether a definite relation 

 could be established between the movements of herrings off the east 

 coast of Scotland and the temperature of the surface of the sea in the 

 neighbourhood of the fishing grounds. The results of the Com- 

 mittee's labours were embodied in three Reports, published in the 

 Journal of the Society ; and they are summed up in the conclusions 

 that, while there is apparently no direct connection between the 

 number of herring caught and the surface-temperature of the sea, 

 there is evidence that the herring-fishing begins as soon as the 

 surface-temperature rises to 55-^° F. Further, a majority of cases 

 showed that great catches were obtained in patches of water colder 

 than the mean temperature of the surrounding area, while shoals of 

 herring were seldom found in relatively warm patches. 



Since that time, our knowledge of the physical conditions obtain- 

 ing in the sea round our coasts has considerably increased ; and 

 especially is this true of the coast of Scotland, thanks to the work of 

 Mill, Gibson, and others in connection with the Scottish Fishery 

 Board and the Scottish Marine Station. At the same time, our 

 acquaintance with the distribution of marine animals has greatly 

 extended. The institutions just mentioned have done good work in 

 Scotland, the Marine Biological Association and the various coast 

 laboratories in England, and the Royal Dublin Society and the 

 Government charter " Harlequin " in Ireland. But up to the present 

 no systematic attempt has been made in this country to follow 

 up the lines suggested by the Committee of the Scottish Society for 

 combined investigation. 



Meanwhile the matter, in so far as it relates to the Baltic Sea 

 and the entrances thereto, has been taken up by Sweden ; and the 

 Swedish oceanographers have achieved brilliant results. With what 

 appear to be practically unlimited resources, extensive explorations 

 have been carried on for several successive years, and a full account 

 of the work by Professor Pettersson, of Stockholm, the chief of the 

 scientific staff, has just been published, in English, in the Scottish 

 Geographical Magazine. 



