15 



Dieppe ; in July, 1899, a Conference took place at Biar- 

 ritz ; in September of the same year a meeting was held 

 at Boulogne, in which some mcml)ers of the French and 

 British Associations took part; finally, and pcriiaps most 

 important of all, because of the extent to which the 

 governments concerned took official part in the meeting, 

 was the International Conference for the Exploration of 

 the Sea which met at Stockholm in June, 1899, on the 

 invitation of the Swedish government. 



At most of these meetings something of interest arose, 

 such as, e.g., the description of the remarkable natural 

 oyster culture ponds on the west coast of Norway, given 

 by Herman Friele at the Bergen Congress ; but it may 

 well be doubted whether such results are at all commen- 

 surate with the time, trouble, and money that has been 

 expended upon the meetings. The discussions of vexed 

 questions have certainly been in most cases quite inade- 

 quate, and have led to no definite results. Perhaps one 

 cause of this partial failure has been that the men who can 

 afford the time to attend such meetings have not always 

 been really representative of the fisheries science of their 

 countries ; but a still more important cause of the futihty 

 of many discussions, and of the reason why the arguments 

 used do not always carry conviction, is the absence of 

 definite observations and reliable statistics. 



Consequently, I am of opinion, an opinion in which I 

 am confirmed by conversation with many fisheries authori- 

 ties and investigators during the last few years, that what 

 we stand most in need of at present is full and accurate 

 statistics in regard to our fisheries, and much more 

 detailed information than we have as to the distribution 

 round the coast of both fishes, in all stages of growth, 

 and the lower animals with which they are associated and 

 upon which they feed, Holding an opinion such as this^ 



