2 
-_ 
(6) Various memoranda and reports that I have had 
oceasion to address to the Chairman and Committee 
during the year. 
I shall remark upon some of these matters here, and the 
others will be treated more fully in the separate sections 
which follow. Last vear I commenced the plan, which I 
hope to be able to adhere to, of having in each annual 
report a detailed account of some animal of local economic 
importance. It was then a memoir on the common 
Cockle, by Mr. Johnstone; this time it is a full account 
of two closely allied and very important Fish-Parasites, 
Lernea and Lepeophtheirus, by Mr. Scott; while next year 
it will be the memoir on the Plaice by Mr. Cole and Mr. 
Johnstone, for which the plates are already drawn. Mr. 
Scott’s remarks upon the effect which the fish-parasites 
have on their hosts, and upon their nutrition and mode of 
life, will be found of interest. The preparation of this 
account of the fish-parasites has occupied a large portion 
of Mr. Scott’s time during that period of the year when 
hatching operations were not in progress. 
An account of the hatching work will be found at p. 51. 
The plan of storing up spawning fish* in the tanks in place 
of trusting to the steamer for supplies has been most 
successful, and the increase from the three and a half 
millions of the previous year to fourteen millions of 
young fish set free this vear is most satisfactory. For the 
rest, Mr. Scott’s time has been filled up by collecting and 
observing, by giving demonstrations to parties of fisher- 
men, by experiments with shellfish, and by various other 
pieces of useful work. The determination of the spawn- 
* We had over 100 adult flounders in the tanks. I see from the Report 
of the Scottish Sea Fishery Board that in their first year’s work at their 
new hatchery at Aberdeen they had 400 spawning plaice, from which over 
16 millions of fry were hatched. The female flounder, however, produces 
about three times as many eggs as the plaice. 
