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the fisheries work to help Mr. Scott and myself. It was 
soon found that we could usefully employ the whole of 
-Mercer’s time in this way, and later in the year he was 
definitely taken over into the Committee’s service. During 
most of the summer and autumn he worked under Mr. 
Scott in arranging the Fisheries Exhibition in Liverpool, 
and since October he has acted as attendant in charge of 
that exhibition, and in doing any other work required in 
connection with the collections, and helping generally in 
the Fisheries Laboratory. 
Mr. Scott went into residence at the Piel Hatchery on 
December Ist, and his place in the Liverpool Fisheries 
Laboratory has been filled by the appointment of Mr. 
James Johnstone, from the Royal College of Science, 
South Kensington, who entered upon his duties early in 
the present month (January, 1898). 
The course of Sea-Fisheries lectures delivered in Liver- 
pool last spring by Mr. Dawson, Mr. Ascroft, Mr. Scott, 
Mr. Thompson, Professor Boyce, and myself went off 
successfully, and attracted a good deal of interest. Alder- 
man Grindley attended the last lecture, and at the 
conclusion of the course spoke in the name of the 
Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Committee. The hope was 
expressed by some of the audience and by the Press that 
the course would be repeated in other parts of the district, 
and that further lectures would be given in Liverpool. 
Our Exhibition and Fisheries Collections at the College 
now give us means of illustrating fishery courses, or of 
arranging demonstrations on fishery subjects, such as can 
exist in very few, if any, other centres in the country. 
In January 1896, at the end of the Introduction to the 
Report for 1895, in urging the formation of the Fisheries 
Museum, which we now have, I pointed out that such 
collections, showing the work we were doing and the 
