December 9, 1920J 



NATURE 



48; 



Zoology at the British Association. 



THE meetings of Section D attracted a large 

 gathering of zoologists from tliis country and 

 a worthy representation from the Dominions and 

 from the United States. Prof. Gilson, of Louvain, 

 was the only Continental guest of the Section. 



Discusiions. 



The discussion on the need for the scientific inves- 

 tigation of the ocean has already been reported in 

 Nature of September 2 (p. 30), and Mr. H. -G. 

 Maurice's address in which he urged that fisheries 

 research is the business of the State was published in 

 Nature of November 25. The discussion on this 

 .'iddress may now be briefly summarised. 



Prof. James Johnstone entirely agreed with Mr. 

 Maurice that a Government Department of Fisheries 

 ought to be thoroughly staffed and equipped for the 

 prosecution of scientific research. But this policy 

 brought u serious responsibility, for sooner or later 

 the fishing industries would ask for the results of 

 the investigations, e.g. whether fish had become more 

 abundant or whether investigation had suggested new 

 and improved methods of utilising sea-fish and pro- 

 ducts at present useless. .As a practical suggestion 

 he thought that in all such economic scientific inves- 

 tigations a new kind of worker was now necessary — 

 the man of the inventor type of mentality — whose 

 task it would be to apply to industry the new dis- 

 ( overies of the laboratory, marine station, or exploring 

 vessel. Pure scientific investigation for its own sake 

 was the proper work of the universities and marine 

 st.'itions, and no development of economic research 

 oucht to curtail it. 



Prof. Gilson (delegate of Belgium on the Inter- 

 n.-itional Council) supported the view that a maritime 

 xiuntry shouhl have a Department of Fisheries 

 Kescarch, and stated that Belgium has adopted this 

 system and, notwithstanding the profound disorganisa- 

 lion of her finances, granted the sum asked to enable 

 h>T full share of oceanographical and fisheries re- 

 ■-( arch to be undertaken. 



Prof. Garstang remarked that twenty years ago 

 they were in the midst of acute controversies between 

 rival groups of marine biologists and between all 

 these and the Fisheries Department in regard to the 

 initiation of the International North Sea Investiga- 

 tions. It was, therefore, particularly gratifying to 

 him to note the unanimity which now prevailed as 

 to the wisdom of the arguments which induced the 

 Government to proceed with that enterprise and were 

 now put forward by the Ministry of Fisheries as 

 iinvincing reasons for its continuance. It must, 

 'vvever, be recognised that there is a danger to 

 ii-nce of its best exponents in one subject being con- 

 iitrated into one Governnjent Department. 

 Prof. Meek said that all were of the same mind 

 that a Government Department should be fully 

 equipped for research so long as the independence of 

 pure science was maintained and it was recognised 

 that much of the work could be done in independent 

 institutions. He then went on to refer to recent 

 trawling results on the Northumberland coast, which 

 showed that fishery conditions in those waters were 

 the same to-day as in 1913. He referred to the areas 

 of distribution of fish from the Canaries to Barents 

 Sea, and pointed out that explanations must be sought 

 in the study of movements of water and of the lives 

 of diatoms and other microscopic organisms. 



Mr. Nealc (("arililT) stated that neither the Govern- 

 ment nor prartic.-il fishermen have given enough con- 



NO. 2667, VOL. 106] 



sideration to the future of fisheries. He found the 

 catches to be no larger now than before the war, and 

 in some cases they were smaller, and he was inclined 

 to believe that natural causes were mainly contribu- 

 tory, and that knowledge of these was required. The 

 amount of ocean fished is very small as compared 

 with the total area of the ocean, and he asked for 

 iftvestigations which owners of commercial trawlers 

 could not carry out. 



Dr. E. J. .Allen expressed satisfaction with the 

 broad views oix scientific research now held at the 

 .Ministry of .Agriculture and Fisheries and put for- 

 w.-ird by Mr. Maurice, and remarked that it was also 

 gratifying to hear that those engaged in the fishing 

 industry now realised the usefulness of scientific 

 investigations. 



Mr. .Maurice briefly replied, explaining that col- 

 laboration in fisheries research was on the high road 

 to being achieved between England, Scotland, and 

 Ireland, the three countries settling their schemes 

 and policy by quarterly inter-Departmental con- 

 ferences. 



The president (Prof. Stanley Gardiner) suggested 

 that the Section might arrange for a full day of 

 discussion at its meeting in Edinburgh in 1921,' and 

 circularise the various fishery federations and asso- 

 ciations to see if their members would be inclined 

 to attend the meeting of the .Association and put up 

 their own facts and problems for friendly discussion 

 with the scientific memtiers of the .Association. The 

 position of the Scottish capital as a common meeting- 

 Cround for the four greatest trawler ports — .Aberdeen, 

 Fleetwood, Grimsby, and Hull — seemed to him to 

 offer an eminently favourable opportunity (or such 

 discussion. 



Protozoa. 



Prof. C. .\. Kofoid described recent observations by 

 himself and his pupils on the neuro-motor system of 

 ciliate and flagellate protozoa. The perfection of the 

 Barber micro-dissection apparatus, which can be 

 operated with great delicacy of action under an oil- 

 immersion objective, has made possible the demon- 

 stration of the existence in certain protozoa of a 

 complicated fibrillar system comparable with the 

 nervous and muscular .systems of higher animals. 

 This integrated neuro-motor system is connected with 

 the nucleus, and plays an important part in the divi- 

 sion of the organism into two. Experimental proof 

 of the conducting function of the fibrillar system in 

 the ciliate l^uplotes was established recently by Dr. 

 T«ylor, who succeeded in cutting the fibrils in the 

 living anim.il. He observed that in these cases there 

 was interfi-rence with the integrated co-ordinated 

 movements of the animal. Cuts of similar extent 

 made in other specimens, but which did not sever the 

 fibrils, did not produce interference with co-ordination. 



Prof. Kofoid pointed out that many of the flagellates 

 are asymmetrical, and generally have a sinistral or 

 lefl-han<led torsion. The origin of bilateral symmetry 

 which prevails in Metazoa, composed of manv cells, 

 app«-;ired to him to bo bound up with two features 

 of the structure of protozoa : (i) The co-ordinating 

 mechanism, already referred to, in the protozoa and 

 its persistence in the form of fibrils connecting the 

 constituent cells of the Metazoa ; and (2) the produc- 

 tion during division into two of a sinistral and n 

 dextral <lniighter-crll, the latter due to a reversal of 

 the primitive sinistral symmetrv and forming a 

 mirror-image of the left one. the mninlenancc of 

 th" union of these two cells thus providing fh<> first 

 step in lh«' origin of primitive liil.iicr.il uiltnil.. 



