t 



August 25, 1892] 



NATURE 



397 



fishes has received special attention. Since 1888 upwards of 

 30,000 white fish — such as cod, turbot, plaice, &c. — have been 

 individually examined. By this means the time and duration of 

 the breeding season has been determined, and the important 

 fact has been proved that on the east coast of Scotland, where 

 the investigation was mainly carried on, the spawning-grounds 

 of the valuable food-fishes (cod, haddock, plaice, turbot, &c.) 

 generally lie outside the territorial limit — contrary to the belief 

 formerly held — and that only forms of comparatively little value, 

 such as the flounder, dabs, and gurnards, &c., spawn within the 

 three-mile limit. The importance of these facts cannot be over- 

 estimated. They bear directly both on the question of estab- 

 lishing a close-time and the measures proper to be taken for the 

 regulation of fishing on the breeding-grounds. The trawlers, 

 driven outside the inshore waters, generally take to the breeding- 

 grounds, for there the hauls are most abundant. The significance 

 of this fact, in connection with the falling off in the inshore 

 fisheries, is becoming too grave to be longer overlooked. The 

 growth of population has been followed by an increase in the 

 demand for fresh fish, the extension of the means of distribution 

 has ministered to this demand, and if the floor of the ocean is to 

 be swept without public regulation, the ordinary fi-hing-grounds 

 will prove inadequate to maintain the supply. The destruction 

 of spawning fish is proving a serious evil. In Germany, where 

 this matter has been carefully examined, it is now held to be 

 more important to protect the spawning-banks, than to prevent 

 the destruction of immature fish. Some of our fisheries are, in 

 fact, in danger of being exhausted unless judicious regulations 

 are rigidly enforced. 



During the last three years experiments have been carried on 

 to determine the migratory movements of fish, and nearly 3000 

 have been labelled and returned to the sea. A percentage of 

 these has been recovered, and steps are now being taken to 

 apply the same method on a large scale to the herring. The 

 experiments are not sufficiently advanced to justify any final con- 

 clusion as regards all fish, but undoubtedly as regards many of 

 them the facts already ascertained prove that until they reach a 

 certain size they do not leave the territorial waters. 



The means of increasing the diminishing fisheries for shell- 

 fish have received careful attention. Surveys have been made 

 of the more important mussel-beds on the east coast, the exten- 

 sive clam-bed in the Firth of Forth, the cockle beds at Barra, 

 and a detailed examination of the great mussel-growing area in 

 the Clyde is at present in progress. The French system of 

 growinsj mussels on wattled bouchots has been tested side by 

 side with the bed-system, and a series of experiments have been 

 made on board the Garland \o test the comparative efficiency of 

 different natural baits, and of various artificial substitutes. A 

 physical and biological investigation has also been made of a 

 number of sea-lochs on the west coast, in order to ascertain 

 their suitability for the growth and culture of oysters (the 

 Scottish oyster having sunk to a very low point), and a special 

 lobster pond has been constructed at Brodick, Arran, in which 

 about 200,000 young lobsters were hatched last year. 



The physical observations into the temperature and salinity 

 of the sea have been carried on on board the Garland and the 

 fishery cruisers, and at ten fixed stations daily — five on the east 

 coast and five on the west. By the courtesy of the Northern 

 Lighthouse Board, observations are allowed to be taken daily at 

 the Bell Rock and Oxcar Lighthouses, the lightship at the North 

 Carr, and also at the mouth of the Tay. Many thousands of 

 observations are thus made every year, and several valuable re- 

 ports have already been published. 



From this brief summary of part of the work done, it will be 

 seen that considerable progress has been made since 18S3 in ex- 

 tending the knowledge of the habits and life-history of the food- 

 fishes ; and it is gratifying to learn that the results obtained by 

 the Board have been gratefully acknowledged by high author- 

 ities, and found useful in other countries. 



In recent years the attention of the authorities of various 

 maritime States, especially those around the North Sea, but also 

 in the Mediterranean and in America, has been forcibly called to 

 the diminution of the fish-supply within the territorial seas and on 

 much-frequented fishing banks offshore. The falling off in the 

 supply of valuable flat fishes, such as turbot, sole, and plaice, 

 from the North Sea, has led to various conferences of those en- 

 gaged in the fishing industry. At the International Fishery 

 Conference held in London in 1890, at which representatives 

 were present from Germany, Denmark, Holland, France, 

 Belgium and Spain, it was resolved that scientific investigations 



NO. 1191, VOL. 46] 



should be carried on by each country, particularly into the cap- 

 ture and destruction of immature fish by the beam trawl, prior 

 to the assembling of an official International Conference to deal 

 with the subject by international agreement ; and at a conference 

 of representatives of the fishing industry held in London last 

 February resolutions were passed, that in view of the diminution 

 of the valuable food- fishes, the hatching of sea-fish should be 

 undertaken on a large scale, and measures adopted to prohibit 

 the sale of immature flat fishes under a certain size. The de- 

 crease in the fish supply from the off-shore banks has not yet 

 become so marked off the Scottish coast as is the case further 

 south ; but from the statistics given below as to the yearly in- 

 creasing number of , Scottish beam-trawlers ; the flocking north- 

 wards of English vessels from their own depleted grounds ; and 

 the actual diminution in the quantity of flat fish landed there is 

 reason to apprehend that in the course of very few years a similar 

 result will be brought about here. As has been stated above, 

 the Board are at present having erected at Dunbar, by means of 

 the ordinary vote for scientific investigation, on a site granted by 

 the War Office and the Council of the Burgh, a large hatchery 

 for sea- fish, with the necessary tanks and pumping apparatus, 

 which, when complete, will permit of several hundreds of 

 millions of the food-fishes being hatched every season and 

 planted on the fishing-grounds. It will therefore be possible 

 for the first time in this country to adopt active measures to 

 directly add to the fish supply, as has already been done in the 

 United States, Norway, Canada, and Newfoundland. 



NOTES. 



Among the honours announced at the change of Ministry 

 the Privy Councillorship conferred upon Prof. Huxley not only 

 establishes a precedent, but affords an indication that the neglect 

 of the claims of men of science, whether they be servants of 

 the Crown or not, to the ordinary national distinctions is not 

 likely to be so marked in the future as it has been in the past. 

 Six years ago or thereabouts. Prof. Huxley was allowed to leave 

 the public service without the slightest recognition of the value 

 of the work he had done in many capacities during some forty 

 years. No better way of making the so-called ♦•honours" 

 ridiculous can be found than in generally omitting to confer 

 them upon persons of distinction — persons known to the nation 

 as devoting their lives to the national welfare in some walk or 

 other. 



We have learned with regret a rumour to the effect that th 

 Admiralty has declined to render the assistance in carrying 

 observers and instruments for which the Royal Society made 

 application some time ago to further the observations of the 

 total solar eclipse in Senegambia next April. If this be con- 

 firmed, the expedition will in all probability be abandoned. 

 Such a state of things requires no comment of ours. 



A MEETING of the Swiss Society of Natural History is an- 

 nounced to take place at Basle, from September 4 to 7, under 

 the Presidency of Prof. Hagenbach-BischofT, and the following 

 communications have been aranged for : — " The Origin of Swiss 

 Lakes," Prof. A. Heim, Zurich ; " The Thermal Conditions of 

 the Lake of Geneva," Prof. F. A. Forel, Morges : "The Biolo- 

 gical Conditions of the East- African Steppe," Prof. C. Keller, 

 Zurich; "The Metamorphosis of Alpine Rocks," Prof. C. 

 Schmidt, Basle ; " The Evolution of Human and Animal Phy- 

 siognomy," Prof. W. His, Leipzig ; " Studies on the Veddahs, 

 the Aboriginals of Ceylon," Dr. Fr. Sarasin, Berlin. A special 

 invitation is given to foreign students to join the meeting. 



According to the Times & telegram has been received from 

 Tromso announcing that the Manchc which left Leith on July 

 20, for Jan Mayen Island, in the Greenland Sea, reached itsdesti 

 nation on the 27th. The island had not been visited for ten 

 years. The vessel went round it and then proceeded to Spits- 

 bergen, where it made important collections of reindeer, foxes, 

 birds, and fossils in Ja Fiprd and Bel Sound. 



