FISHERY INVESTIGATIONS 335 



scientific memoir may embody work done on other lines, or 

 even on lines opposed to those adopted at St Andrews, but 

 it is only fair to the Scottish Laboratory to say that in no 

 case has such work proved fully reliable, or of any real per- 

 manent utility to those charged with the onerous task of 

 administering fisheries, or framing fishery legislation for the 

 preservation of the resources of the sea and of inland waters. 

 Much reliable work has been done by various investigators, 

 and a mass of reports issued from different laboratories, which 

 merely repeat, in some cases almost without alteration, the 

 discoveries made at St Andrews ; and the later descriptions 

 and drawings of eggs and larvae, and the more mature stages, 

 are frequently little different from those issued during the 

 last quarter of a century from the Marine Laboratory at St 

 Andrews. A large amount of public money devoted to such 

 work work which had already been done by the St Andrews 

 experts might have been devoted to new and more fruitful 

 researches. It is mere justice to say that the St Andrews 

 researches, for a long period, were made with much sacrifice 

 on the part of all engaged, and with very meagre support 

 from the public funds. So many vital problems still urgently 

 await solution in regard to the sea's resources, that the mere 

 repetition, under public auspices, of work already done, is 

 too serious a matter to go unnoticed. The public have not 

 yet awakened to the unjustifiable diversion of public money, 

 in carrying on such unnecessary work, or in pursuing elaborate 

 investigations which have no bearing on the prosperity of 

 the fisheries, as a great national industry and a source of 

 food supply for the people. 1 



1 As an example of unnecessary research and wasteful costly publication, it may 

 be pointed out that at least five detailed accounts (the latest in German) of the eggs 

 and development of the Plaice (Platessa) have appeared in recent years, accompanied 

 by costly plates and drawings, these differing little from the drawings and plates 

 published from St Andrews over twenty years ago. 



