40 



Conclusion. 

 This first report* on the Sea-Fisheries Laboratory only 

 deals with eight months work, and that work, commenced 

 suddenly in the middle of the summer, with a new assistant 

 strange to the ground, has been of necessity to a large 

 extent tentative and introductory. We may reasonably 

 hope that much more systematic work will be possible 

 during the coming season, now that there is a permanent 

 steamer suitable for work at sea, and that the bailiffs know 

 what we want sent by them, and that we in the laboratory 

 know better what the nature and products of the different 

 parts of the district are; and naturally — as has been 

 found in other places — the value of the work will increase 

 year by year as the statistics are accumulated, and as the 

 facilities for carrying on the work increase. For I hope 

 this is only the beginning of a very much larger system of 

 the application of scientific methods and knowledge to the 

 investigation of the fisheries of our neighbourhood and of 

 the country generally. When we consider what is being 

 done elsewhere for the biological investigation of sea- 

 fisheries, we realize what a very small beginning has 

 been made, and how much more Lancashire ought to do. 

 In America the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries 

 have a number of laboratories, stations, and hatcheries, a 

 large staff of Naturalists, and devote a large grant annually 

 to the scientific work. Germany no sooner obtained 

 possession of Heligoland than she established there a 

 Biological Station with a staff of Naturalists to investigate 

 the fisheries of the neighbouring German Coasts. France, 

 Italy and other European states are devoting much time 

 and money to the benefit of their fishing industries. 

 Finally the Scottish Fishery Board has a Biological Station, 

 as well as a Fish Hatchery, at Dunbar, another Biological 

 Station (under Prof. M'Intosh) at St. Andrews, a Lobster 

 * In which, for brevity, much reference to published papers has been omitted. 



