2l6 



NATURE 



[April i^^ 1920 



the remainder in Count}- Corli. The remaining 

 i8,cx)o acres under acquisition are in Scotland. 

 Planting is proceeding at thirteen centres — six in 

 England and Wales, six in Scotland, and one in 

 Ireland. Statistical work is being carried out and 

 preliminary surveys are being undertaken. 



The scheme for advances under the Forestry Act 

 will be published "after the consultative committees 

 which have just been set up have considered the 

 proposals. 



Forest apprentices are receiving a two-year course 

 in the Forest of Dean, the New Forest, and in Chop- 

 well Woods, near Newcastle, and additional schools 

 will be opened during the year. A special course for 

 men with previous forestry experience is being con- 

 ducted at Marischal College, Aberdeen. 



An Imperial Conference to consider the forest re- 

 sources and policy of the Empire is being organised 

 for July, when a number of persons interested _ in 

 forestry are exoected in this country for the British 

 Empire Timber Exhibition. The conference is ex- 

 pected to lead to the establishment of an Imperial 

 Bureau of Forestrv Information. 



The Commission has published Bulletin No. i, 

 "Collection of Data as to the Rate of Growth of 

 Timber" (which can be obtained post free for 4id._ on 

 application at the headquarters of the Commission, 

 22 Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.i); also Leaflet 

 No. I, " Pine Weevils " (free). Other publications will 

 follow at an early date. 



The four consultative committees under the Forestry 

 Act have been appointed, and consist of the following 

 members :— 



En^Zand.— Lt.-Col. G. L. Courthope (chairman). 

 Col. M. T. Wilson (vice-chairman), Sir J. Ball, Lord 

 Henrv C. Bentinck, E. Callaway, the Earl of 

 Chichester, M. C. Duchesne, T. H. Green, W. A. 

 Haviland, Sir Edward Holt, Bart., E. C. Horton, 

 A. F. Luttrell, W. Peacock, Major Harold 

 Pearson, Col. B. J. Petre, Thomas Roberts, Sir 

 William Schlich, W. R. Smith. Charles Stewart, Sir 

 Lawrence Weaver, Col. J. W. Weston, and Leslie S. 

 W'ood. 



Wales.— Th^ Lord Kenvon (chairman). Col. F. D. W. 

 Drummond (vice-chairman), C. B. Bovill, Major 

 David Davies, Alderman T. W. David, Col. J. R. 

 Davidson, Caot. J. D. D. Evans, Col. W. Forrest, 

 Vernon Hartshorn, G. A. Humohrevs, C. Bryner 

 Tones, J. Jones, Lt.-Col. W. N. Jones, Col. C. V. 

 Llewellvn, F. L Matthews, the Earl of Powis, L. R. 

 Pym. D. C. Roberts, J. Roberts, Major-Gen. A. E. 

 Sandbach, J. T. Storrar, the Lord Tredegar, H. C. 

 Vincent, P. Wilkinson, and Col. Sir H. L. Watkin- 

 Williams-Wvnn, Bart. 



ScofZajid.— Sir Hugh Shaw-Stewart, Bart, (chair- 

 man). Gen. Stirling of Keir (vice-chairman), the Right 

 Hon. William Adamson, Sir Isaac Bavlev Balfour, 

 F. R. S. Balfour, Wm. Black, Gilbert Brown, J. C. 

 Calder, Sir Isaac Connell, J. A. Duthie, G. Eraser, 

 R. Gallowav, S. J. Gammell, Sir Robert Greig, J. H. 

 Milne Home. G. Leven, Sir Robert Lorimer, H. L. 

 Macdonald, Sir Kenneth J. Mackenzie, Bart., J. T. 

 McLaren, J. Matson, D. Munro, Major W. Murray, 

 J. Scott, and J. Wight. v tt r^ t- 



Ireland. — ^T. B. Ponsonbv (chairman), H. De F. 

 Montgomerv (vice-chairman), E. M. Archdale, J. Bag- 

 well, the Lord Osborne Beauclerk, R. Bell, R. 

 Bradlev, S. Brown, J. R. Campbell. St. Clair M. 

 Dobbs.' Sir Henrv Doran, J. Everett, V. C. Le Fanu, 

 Wm. Field, A. C. Forbes, J. Calvin, the Earl_ of 

 Granard. Prof. Au£?ustine Henrv, Wm. Kirkpatrick, 

 A. E. Moran. the Viscount Powerscourt, the Viscount 

 de Vesci, A. Vincent, Cant. R. H. Prior Wandesforde, 

 and the Right Hon. F. S. Wrench. 

 NO. 2633, VOL. 105] 



Recent Fishery Investigations.^ 



FIVE years ago the pivot round which fishery inves- 

 tigation turned v^as the question of the produc- 

 tivity of the North Sea grounds. It was ag-reed that 

 the enormous development of catching power since the 

 last third of the nineteenth century had produced no 

 apparent change in the abundance of herring, had- 

 dock, whiting, and possibly some other species, but 

 that, on the other hand, plaice, sole, turbot, and some 

 other edible fishes had been affected. In January, 1913, 

 the Plaice Committee of the International Fishery 

 Council stated that it then had evidence that large 

 plaice were becoming scarcer in the North Sea, and 

 that small plaice were becoming more abundant, and 

 this was taken to be proof that there was "impoverish- 

 ment," or excessive exploitation of a natural resource. 

 The conclusion is not free from ambiguity, for, on the 

 whole, the total quantity of fish landed increased up to 

 1913; what had happened, it appears, was a reduction 

 in the average expectation of life of a plaice living in 

 the North Sea. Now if that change was a result of 

 "intensive" fishing up to 1914, what has been the 

 result of the very great decrease in fishing during the 

 years 1915-18? Drs. A. C. Johansen and Kirstine 

 Smith seek to answer this question by discussing 

 measurements of plaice landed from a Danish North 

 Sea area which was tolerably free from military restric- 

 tions during the period of war. They find that the 

 pre-war tendency has been reversed; that large plaice 

 are now relatively much more abundant than they 

 were, but that their rate of growth has decreased — a 

 curious result. We were justified, they say, in conclud- 

 ing that intensive fishing could reduce a natural stock 

 of fish, and we are also justified in expecting that a 

 slackening of this intensity of fishing, even for a rela- 

 tively short period, will have the opposite effect. 



The method by which the latter conclusion is rnade 

 is indirect, and one is scarcely convinced that it is 

 beyond doubt. It seems easy to"show whether or not a 

 natural fishery is stationary or declining. It would 

 be easv and the conclusions certain if the 

 systems' of collecting statistics were adequate and 

 well planned and if there were good scientific investi- 

 gations that enabled one to interpret the statistical 

 data. But the statistics are not adequate, and the 

 scientific investigations have been neither well planned 

 nor properly supported, and therefore the methods are 

 roundabout ones and the conclusions do not carry 

 absolute conviction We do not know, for instance, 

 that there is not a natural i:>eriodicity of abundance 

 and that the results noticed do not simply repre- 

 sent phases in a cyclic change. It is quite likely that 

 they do. 



The last report of the Dove Marine Laboratory (at 

 Cullercoats, Northumberland) contains an account (by 

 Mrs. Dorothy Cowan and Mr. B. Storrow) of investi- 

 gations into the local herring fishery. This and former 

 reports contain a very rich series of data with regard 

 to the biology of the herring on the North East coast, 

 and apparently not all the results obtained have been 

 published— the present report, for instance, deals only 

 with age-determinations (by means of "scale-read- 

 ings ")," while biometric measurements made as part 

 of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries scheme of 

 racial investigations have also been accumulated. Prof. 

 Meek, in editing the report, points out that extensive 

 accumulations of data have not yet been analysed, and 

 that such treatment is advisable before further investi- 

 gations are planned. His discussion of some of Mr, 

 Storrow 's results gives point to an expression of dis- 



1 " Meddelelser fra Kommissionen for Havunder sojelser ; Ser Fiskeri," 

 i P)d. v., Nr. 9. (Copenhagen, 1919.) 



