SEA FISHERIES 161 



far as such investigation deals with stocking 

 a shell-fishery, and their influence upon scien- 

 tific research in fishery questions has been 

 negligible. In many cases the committees con- 

 trol too small an area, and are able to raise too 

 small an income to be effective. Where they 

 have amalgamated, as is the case in Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, and many of the sea-coast counties 

 of Wales, they have been more successful. 



Neither the central authorities, whose chief 

 function is to adminster the law and collect 

 statistics, nor the local committees, where, as 

 we have seen, the power of spending money is 

 limited to the " shell fisheries " and stretch 

 the Act to the breaking point you cannot make 

 a flat-fish into a shell-fish have either the time 

 or the money for extensive scientific experiment. 

 This has to a large extent been left to local or 

 private enterprise, and is in the main confined 

 to four centres, the Northumberland coast, the 

 Lancashire and Western district, and the Channel 

 and North Sea. The first-named area has re- 

 cently been supplied by a private benefactor 

 with funds for an efficient laboratory, situated 

 at Cullercoats, from which it may be expected 



that much useful work will ensue. 



L 



