21 



being carried straight ashore or stranded on sandbanks 

 by wind and tide. They must be set free as nearly as 

 possible where they would be found under natural con- 

 ditions, and that is somewhere in the open deep water 

 where the parent fish spawn. It is most satisfactory and 

 re-assuring, then, to find, by these " drift bottle " experi- 

 ments, that small objects set free in the surface layers of 

 water to the east and south-east of the Isle of Man (where 

 we can obtain the purest and most constant water for the 

 purposes of a hatchery) are gradually carried over to the 

 eastward ; so that young flat fish hatched there, or set 

 free there from a hatchery, by the time they have passed 

 through their larval stages and are ready to take to the 

 bottom in shallow water in order to search for Copepoda 

 and other food matters, would find themselves in the 

 Lancashire and Cheshire bays and estuaries which consti- 

 tute our fish "nurseries." 



SECTION III. 



Mussels and Mussel Beds. 



(By Mr. Andrew Scott.) 



We have continued the examination of samples of the 

 various kinds of shell-fish caught for sale in the Lancashire 

 Sea-Fisheries district, but have nothing new to record 

 beyond the fact that the results as to feeding and spawning 

 confirm what has already been published in the former 

 Reports. 



With a view of securing further information, however, 

 regarding the food, habits, life-histories, etc., of the 

 shell-fish, we have begun to make periodic examinations 

 of the various beds of the district. In connection with 



