FISHERY INVESTIGATIONS 329 



the same conditions as men, in a Scottish University. The 

 present writer also gave, at the same time, a course on Zoology, 

 and in the opening address said, ' The delivery of Mr Robert- 

 son's address in the department of Botany and my own 

 Zoological lecture to-day, mark an event in some respects 

 unique in the academic annals of this country. ... It remains 

 to be seen how profoundly the great step now taken may 

 affect the education of women in the future. . . . The part 

 St Andrews had in the early days of Girton College, Cambridge, 

 are well known ; but all the facilities given by St Andrews 

 and other collegiate foundations, fall short of the step, one 

 might almost say the revolution which this quiet College 

 witnesses now when the ancient University throws its class- 

 rooms open to women.' 



FISHERY PROBLEMS FIRST ATTACKED AT ST ANDREWS 



What was the task which St Andrews was the first to 

 undertake in regard to fisheries, thanks to its veteran professor 

 of Zoology Professor M'Intosh? It was, among other things, 

 the elucidation of the many complex problems connected 

 with fisheries and with the life of marine fishes, the discovery 

 of the facts as to the dependence of the inshore waters upon 

 the offshore waters, and the demonstration of the small im- 

 portance of legislation, applied by the authorities to the 

 littoral areas of the sea, from the point of view of the per- 

 manence of the fish supply in the great oceans of the world. 

 To give an example, the cod, halibut, plaice, and turbot 

 shed their eggs for the most part in offshore waters, and as 

 these are pelagic and buoyant, and float freely near the sea's 

 surface, they are largely beyond injurious interference of any 

 ordinary kind ; but, when very young, these fishes, except 

 the haddock, seek the shores, and are too small to be seriously 

 affected by man's operations. Nets, such as shrimpers use, 

 destroy vast numbers of certain of these minute fishes, yet 



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