8 GEORGE V SESSIONAL PAPER No. 38a A. 1918 



PREFACE. 



By Professor Edward E. Prince, LL.D., M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S.C., Commissioner of 

 Fisheries for Canada, Chairman of the Biological Board, Life Metnher of the 

 British Science Guild, Vice-President of the International Fisheries Congress, 

 Washington, D.C., 1907, Memher of International Relations Committee, American 

 Fisheries Society, 1917, Chairman of Food Refrigeration Committee, Canadian 

 Research Council, Ottawa, etc. 



The staff of scientists at the Dominion Biological stations at St. Andrews, New 

 Brunswick, and Departure Bay, Xanaimo, British Columbia, have continued their 

 laborious investigations into fishery problems and the marine and fresh-water resources 

 of Canada with unabated energy and zeal. The results, or rather portions of them, 

 are contained in the sixteen reports now published. 



The subjects cover a wide range, and in ninny cases deal with vexed questions 

 vitally affecting our fishing industries. 



It is simple justice to say that many of the researches now presented were carried 

 on with much sacrifice on the part of the scientists engaging in them, and without any 

 remuneration at all, or with meagre acknowledgment in the form of an inadequate 

 honorarium. 



As chairman of the Biological Board of Canada, and for twenty-five years the chief 

 adviser and scientific fishery authority of the Government of Canada, I desire to tes- 

 tify to the zeal, skill, and laborious devotion of the qualified and trained specialists 

 who completed the investigations contained in the pages of this volume of " Contri- 

 butions to Canadian Biology." 



The biological stations, in their laboratories, libraries, instruments, stores of 

 chemicals, glassware, and fishing gear, provide facilities of no ordinary kind for 

 workers trained in the science schools of our Canadian universities, but these facili- 

 ties, by a rigid rule of the Biological Board, are available only to advanced students, 

 professors, or members of university staffs, and qualified, therefore, to undertake 

 original research and discovery. Unlike the Biological Stations in many other coun- 

 tries, no courses of instruction or elementary lectures are given, and no attempt at 

 popularizing science made. To add to the knowledge, so urgently needed by our fish- 

 eries, to increase accurate information on which fishery legislation should alone be 

 based, have been the main objects aimed at; but it is possible that some scheme of 

 fishery education and the dissemination of popular information, regarding fishes and 

 aquatic resources generally, may be added to the future plans of the Biological Board. 



The authors of the papers now published represent the following Canadian Uni- 

 versities : Toronto, Queens (Kingston, Ont.), McGill. Western University (London, 

 Ont), Laval. Manitoba, Dalhousie (Halifax, X.S.), Acadia (Wolfville, KS.), and 

 New Brunswick (Fredericton) ; and other scientists from the United States and from 

 Canada have also contributed. 



The stations have now the advantage of resident scientific curators, viz: Dr. A. 

 G. Huntsman at St. Andrews, N.B., and Dr. C. McLean Fraser, at Departure Bay, 

 B.C., and a new impetus to successful work has been given by the labours of these 

 gifted and distinguished Canadian biologists. 



As in preceding volumes of the " Contributions," I have prepared brief summaries 

 ■of the reports which follow, for purposes of easy reference. 



