2. BIOLOGICAL AND FISHERIES INVESTIGATIONS 



Slockliolm Con 

 ferencc 



Introduction It was the intentioii from the beginning, that the biological section of the inter- 



national investigations should be concerned especially with the study of the food- 

 fishes and the condition of the fisheries: the fish eggs, the young stages of fishes. 

 Initial program a.nd the adult fishes, were to be studied as carefully as possible, with regard to their 

 occurrence and distribution, and their conditions of life and development. The 

 observations on marketable fish were also to embrace the migrations, food, and 

 dangers to the stock arising from natural enemies as well as from the fishing by 

 man. As to the methods to be employed for this purpose, the Stockholm Program ' 

 mentioned the following: experimental fisheries investigations, which were to be 

 made alongside those of the fishermen on the known fishing-grounds, and also 

 outside these; the compilation of a fisheries statistic regarding the experiments 

 thus made; the use of similar apparatus; the marking and setting out of fish of 

 certain species. The same program also mentioned the desirability of making an 

 endeavour to draw up a general statistic of the fish landed in the various coun- 

 tries, and that materials shoiild be collected for the preparation of fishery charts. 

 . The Christiania Program ^ was much more detailed; it may be regarded as a 

 further elaboration of the first. In addition to the biology of the food-fishes and 

 the fisheries statistics, attention was also devoted in this 2 «^ program to the study 

 of the bottom-soil and of the plankton from the biological aspect; quantitative 

 plankton-hauls were to be made in addition to the qualitative hauls, the organisms 

 of the water-layers lying immediately ower the bottom were to be more closely 

 investigated, and systematic investigations were to be undertaken on the micro- 

 scopic animal and plant life of the bottom, with special regard to the food of the 

 food-fishes. 



The participating countries generally took measures to proceed along the 

 lines indicated by this program. When the time came, however, to pass from the 

 stage of preparatory conferences to that of beginning the work, it appeared neces- 

 sary that the common investigations should concentrate their attention, at least in 

 the beginning, on the working out of some principal problems, if vahiable results 

 were to be obtained within reasonable time. The resolutions of the first meeting 



Necessity of 



concentrating 



the worl: 



1 Conférence internationale, Stockholm, 1899. Résolutions textuelles, p. 10 — 12. 



2 2. Conférence internationale, Christiania, 1901. Texte des résolutions, p. 10 — 



19- 



