ii6 



NA TURE 



[May 30, 1 90 1 



Five volumes have novi' appeared, bearing ihe dates 1S86, 

 89, 92, 95 and 1901. (3) The " L.M.B.C. Memoirs," a series 

 of detailed descriptions of the structure of certain common 

 typical animals and plants, chosen as representatives of their 

 groups and dealt with by specialists. Memoirs on the following 

 types have already appeared or are in the press : I. Ascidia, 

 II. Caidiiiiii, III. Echinus, IV. Codiiim, V. Akyoiiiiim, 

 VI. Lipeophlluirui and Lernaea, and VII. Linens. Several 

 others are nearly ready, and about thirty-five in all have been 

 arranged for. Amongst other L M.B.C workers whose names 

 have not been mentioned are Mr. A. O. Walker, Mr. Arnold 

 Watson, Mr. A. Leicester and Prof. Harvey Gibson. 



III. Lancashire Sca-Fisherics Comiiiif!ee.—T\\e district con- 

 trolled by this Committee (recently amalgamated with the former 

 Western Sea-Fisheries District to form what is now officially 

 styled "The Lancashire and Western Sea-Fisheries District") 

 is probably the largest, and in several respects the most important, 

 of the sea-fisheries districts which have been established since 

 1S90, in connection with the County Councils, round the coasts of 

 England and Wales, under the Sea-Fisheries Regulation Act of 

 iSSS. The district extends from the Duddon, in Cumberland, to 

 Cardigan, in South Wales, and thus runs for about 441 statute 

 miles along the shores of the Irish Sea. It bounds in all nine 

 counties and contains about 1500 square miles of sea. Nearly 

 every kind of English sea-fishing is carried on within this 

 district, including fish-trawling, line-fishing in all its branches, 

 drift net, trammel net and draw net fishing ; set nets and stake 

 nets, weirs and hedge-baulks are also used. Besides these there 

 is a very large shrimping industry which is carried on by the use 

 of shrimp trawls, shank nets, hose nets and push nets. Lobsters, 

 crabs and prawns are taken m many places, and there is a very 

 large area of shell-fish beds — mussels, cockles and oysters. 



The work of the Committee is mainly administrative, and is 

 carried out by a superintendent, Mr. R. A. Dawson, who has at 

 his command an efficient steamer and a staff of bailiffs. There 

 is also a scientific department, of which the present writer is 

 hon. director, and the work of which centres in Liverpool. In 

 that department we have a central fisheries laboratory in 

 University College, and a branch laboratory with sea-fish 

 hatchery at Piel, near Barrow in Ihe north of Lancashire. The 

 fisheries assistant at Liverpool is Mr. James Johnstone, and 

 the resident assistant in charge of the Piel Hatchery is Mr. 

 Andrew Scott. Both these gentlemen are known to marine 

 biologists by their investigations, those of Mr. Johnstone being 

 on the mussel and the cockle, and those of Mr. Scott for the 

 most part on Copepoda and fish-hatching. 



The work of the scientific department of the Lancashire Sea- 

 Fisheries is most varied throughout the year, and ranges from 

 teaching fishermen and keeping up a fisheries museum to hatching 

 fish, reporting on oysters, and carrying on research in regard to 

 all kinds of fisheries problems. The following headings of 

 sections in the last published annual report (the ninth) will give 

 an idea of the scope of the work : required survey of fishing 

 grounds, fish-hatching, spawning of mussel, statistics of shrimp- 

 ing grounds and fish, relation of deposits to shrimps, sporozoon 

 parasite of the plaice, Copepod fish parasites, circulating fisheries 

 e.xhibition, laboratory classes for fishermen, inspection of shell- 

 fish beds, and the question of sewage contamination. In this 

 report it is urged that "what we stand most in need of at 

 present is full and accurate statistics in regard to our fisheries, 

 and much more detailed information than we have as to the 

 distribution round the coast both of fishes in all stages of growth 

 and also of the lower animals with which they are associated 

 and upon which they feed". . . "We must, in fact, get series 

 of accurate observations which will give us fair samples of the 

 more sedentary populations of our seas on the diflerent grounds, 

 such as trawling grounds, shrimping grounds, nurseries and 

 spawning banks at the different seasons ". . . " My contention, 

 then, is that such an investigation of our seas must be made, 

 that it is urgent and should be made now, and that the Irish Sea 

 is favourably situated and circumstanced at present to be made a 

 test case before undertaking the much wider and still more 

 difficult expanse of the North Sea, complicated by international 

 questions. The Irish Sea is of moderate and manageable 

 dimensions. It is all bounded by British territory and by sea- 

 fisheries authorities which might agree as to their regulations. 

 It is a ' self-contained ' fish area, containing both shallow and 

 deep water, spawning banks, feeding grounds ani] nurseries. It 

 has several laboratories (Liverpool, Dublin, Port Erin and 



NO. 1648, VOL. 64] 



Piel) on its borders which would form centres for investigation, 

 and it is controlled by powerful sea-fisheries authorities, two of 

 which at least (Lancashire and Ireland) are provided with 

 excellent steamers which might combine in the work. All that 

 is required, beyond a carefully considered scheme, is authority 

 from Government to the local committees to carry out such 

 work, and a subsidy for, say, five years, to meet the increased 

 expense." It is pointed out that there are two methods by which 

 the required survey of our seas might be effected : — (l) By forming 

 a properly equipped Govemmtat department (in some respects 

 like the Geological Survey), with laboratories and steamers and 

 a scientific staff competent to tackle the scientific prohleras 

 involved ; and (2) by making use of existing organisations, 

 giving fuller powers to the local committees, and by en- 

 couraging and enabling them to spend money on the necessary 

 investigations in their own districts. 



It has been found in Liverpool that the only effective way of 

 teaching fishermen is by means of practical classes. Lectures of 

 all kinds, followed by discussions long and short, demonstrations 

 microscopic and otherwise, have been tried in vain, or with 

 only qualified success. Of course the brighter spirits amongst 

 them, the picked men, can be instructed by any method, but. 

 for the average fisherman it takes the patient hammering of 

 hour after hour and day after day in a laboratory class, where 

 you appeal, not only to his ears, but also to his eyes and his 

 fingers, and where he makes and remakes his own preparations, 

 cleans his own cover-glasses and focusses the microscope for 

 himself, before he can understand and will believe what he is 

 told and sees, and finally becomes convinced, for example, that 

 he is really looking at a young fish inside a minute transparent 

 egg caught on the surface of the sea, or that what he and his 

 fellows have always stoutly maintained to be the spawn of flat 

 fishes is after all only the egg-capsule of an Annelid. 



After deciding that this was the best plan to adopt in applying 

 technical instruction to the fisheries, we started these laboratory 

 courses in Liverpool last spring (February 1900). Two courses 

 were held last year, two are being held this spring, and two 

 others will follow later in the summer. The Technical In- 

 struction Committee defrayed the expenses of the fishermen. 

 That is, they gave 5/. to each man to meet his travelling 

 expenses and his board and lodging in Liverpool during the 

 fortnight he was under instruction. No charge was made for 

 instruction or for the use of the microscopes, dissecting instru- 

 ments, material and reagents— everything necessary was 

 supplied by the laboratory. The teaching was carried on by 

 Mr. Johnstone under my supervision, and the whole course was 

 entirely practical in character, each man examining everything for 

 himself and working every day, both forenoon and afternoon. For 

 details as to the work of the course I must refer to our report, 

 but I may say, in conclusion, that the results were most en- 

 couraging, and that from the reports of the superintendent of 

 fisheries to his committee there can be no doubt as to the 

 success of the method in the eyes of the fishermen and of the 

 sea- fisheries officers. 



I must now have nearly reached the limits which the Editor 

 asked me not to exceed, and so I fear I must not enter upon 

 further details, although I should have liked to have told how Mr. 

 Thompson and Mr. Scott are working at the Copepoda, Mr. 

 Chadwick and Mr. Ascroft at plankton, Mr. Johnstone and Dr. 

 Jenkins at fishery statistics, Mr. Cole at the nerves of the flat 

 fishes, and others of my excellent assistants and colleagues at 

 various other special problems. But I must be content for the 

 present with the above sketch of the local marine biological and 

 fisheries work which centres in Liverpool, and with the following 

 expression of my strong convictions on two points. I feel 

 certain — 



(1) That for such work the great thing is friendly co- 

 operation. The field is so enormous and the work so varied 

 in its nature that there is room and use for many individiials of 

 very different capabilities. And if the work is to be carried on 

 without Government .subsidy or large endowments it is necessary 

 to attract and combine various local organisations, such as 

 University, County Council, local scientific societies, and that 

 characteristically English product the serious amateur who 

 does excellent original scientific work. 



(2) That this work is only beginning, and that a great future 

 lies before marine biology in all its branches, including the ap- 

 plication of scientific methods to the investigation of fisheries 

 problems, ^ W- A. HerdmaN. 



