308 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



have hitherto dealt with the fish as they live in the sea — their 

 structure and habits, their reproduction and life-history, 

 their food and general relations to their environment — 

 with the object of discovering the best means of conserving 

 the fisheries or even of increasing the supply of fish. But 

 it is now coming to be recognized that there is need also of 

 biologico- chemical investigations on the fish after they are 

 caught, on the post-mortem changes that they undergo in 

 different circumstances, and on how best to preserve them 

 with their nutrient and other desirable qualities unimpaired 

 until they are put on the market and used as food. 



Such investigations will teach us how best to deal with 

 the occasional, unexpected, superabundant catches which 

 glut the markets, and may even result in much good food 

 being wasted as field-manure. But they will also lead to 

 a more equitable distribution and a more profitable use of 

 the periodic profusion of such local fisheries as those of 

 herrings, mackerel and sprats. The best use, economically, 

 that can be made, for example, of the summer herring fishery 

 in the Irish Sea, or in the Hebrides, is to cure in various 

 ways (kippering, salting, etc.) the great bulk of the catch. 

 Distribution can thus be controlled, consumption can be 

 spread over a longer period, the product may be improved 

 as a food and local industries are established. As Dr. James 

 Johnstone has pointed out, " A clamant need of the present 

 time, and indeed of normal times, is the curing of summer- 

 caught herrings for consumption in winter, when fat- 

 rich foods are more useful than in the warmer months." ^ 



A minor, but still quite typical, example of such occasional 

 or even periodic glut of fishes, difficult to deal with and 

 leading to waste of good food, is the winter sprat fishery in 

 Morecambe Bay. During the height of a recent fishery 

 fully seventy tons of fish were landed each day, and the 

 value to the fishermen of such a catch was over £300. A 

 ton of sprats contains, on the average, 130,000 fish. In a 

 ^ Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Laboratory Report for 1916, p. 23. 



