Eeport on the Investigations carried on in 1892 

 in connection with the Lancashire Sea-Fisheries 

 Laboratory at University College, Liverpool. 



"* By Professor W. A. Herdman, D.Sc, F.K.S. 



Introduction. 



In December, 1891, I was invited by the Technical 

 Instruction Committee of the Lancashire County Council 

 to submit to them a scheme for the instruction of the 

 Fishermen of the neighbourhood in Biological matters 

 having a bearing upon the fishing industries. In mem- 

 oranda which I sent to that Committee in Dec, 1891, 

 and Jan., 1892, I pointed out that lectures on the food, 

 reproduction, and life history of food fishes, illustrated by 

 lantern slides, specimens, and microscopic preparations, 

 could be given at different centres ; but that of still 

 greater value to the fisheries of the district would be the 

 establishment of a small laboratory in which the investi- 

 gation of biological problems involved in the fisheries 

 could be carried on by competent observers ; and that the 

 results of the work done in this laboratory, and in similar 

 laboratories elsewhere — in fact the additions to our exact 

 knowledge of fishery matters during the year — might be 

 communicated to the Fishermen, under the auspices of 

 the Technical Instruction Committee, in the form of a 

 few lectures annually. 



After some further correspondence and the elaboration 

 of details my proposed scheme was adopted, and the first 

 course of lectures was carried on, in the summer of 1892, 

 as arranged by Mr. Bennion, Director of Technical 

 Instruction ; while the matter of the laboratory and the 



