180 
Yare Preservation Society; Lieut.-Col. F. H. Custance ; 
Michael Beverley, M.D.; H. W. Bidwell; G. F. Buxton ; 
H. W. Fielden, late Naturalist to Sir G, Nares’s Arctic Expe- 
dition ; Thos. Southwell. 
I.— Preface 
(1) The necessity for an administration of our marine and 
fresh-water fisheries based upon thorough or scientific knowledge 
of all that relates to them has become obvious of late years. 
The Trawling Commission of 1884-85 has reported to this effect 
in so far as the subject of their inquiries is concerned. Other 
nations have adopted such a method of dealing with their fish- 
eries, with good results and the promise of better. 
(2) The inquiries and operations necessary cannot be con- 
ducted as the result of private commercial enterprise. They 
must be national in character. 
(3) Whilst the general trade returns of the fishing industry, 
on the one hand, and the practical enforcing of regulations as 
to the protection of fishing-grounds and the restriction of fish- 
ing operations within certain seasons and localities are matters 
with which an ordinary staff of officials can effectually deal, yet 
the chief purposes of the operation of a satisfactory Fisheries 
Department are of sucha nature that only expert naturalists can 
usefully advise upon them and carry them out. It is therefore 
important that the organisation of a State Fisheries Department 
should either be primarily under the control of a scientific 
authority who should direct the practical agencies as to trade 
returns and police, or that there should be distinct and parallel 
branches of the Department—the one concerned in scientific 
questions, the other in collecting trade returns and in directing 
the fisheries police. 
' (4) It does not appear that there is any ground for supposing 
that individuals of scientific training are zfso facto unfitted for 
administrative duties, and there would be obvious advantages 
in placing the operations of a Fisheries Department under one 
head. Indeed, it may be maintained that an education in 
scientific matters, and capacity for scientific work, is likely to 
produce a more practical and enterprising director of such a 
Department than could elsewhere be found. It has not been 
found desirable to place the administration of the important 
botanical institution at Kew in the hands of a non-scientific 
director, and there is no obvious reason for avoiding the 
employment of a scientific staff in the case of a Fisheries 
Department. 
Il.—Nature of the Work to be done 
(1) Generally to ascertain what restrictions or modifications 
in the proceedings of fishermen are desirable, so as to insure 
the largest and most satisfactory returns prospectively as well as 
immediately from the fishing-grounds of the English coast and 
from English rivers and lakes. 
(2) Especially to ascertain whether existing fishing-grounds 
can be improved by the artificial breeding of food-fishes and 
shell-fish, and to determine the methods of carrying on such 
breeding, and to put these methods into practice. 
(3) To find new fishing-grounds. 
(4) To introduce new fish—either actually new to the locality 
or new to the consumer. 
(5) To introduce (if practicable) methods of rearing and 
fattening marine fish in stock-ponds. 
(6) To look after the cultivation and supply of bait. 
(7) To introduce new baits, new methods of fishing, im- 
proved nets, improved boats, new methods of transport and of 
curing. 
The work can be divided into two sections. 
B, Practical Administration. 
A. Jnvestigation.— The inquiries which are necessary in order 
to effect the purposes indicated above are as follows :— 
(1) A thorough physical and biological exploration of the 
British coasts within a certain distance of the shore-line, 
especially and primarily in the neighbourhood of fishing- 
grounds. The investigation must include a determination of 
temperature and currents at various depths, the nature of the 
bottom, the composition of the sea-water, and the influence of 
rivers and conformation of coast upon these features. At the 
same time the entire range of the fauna and flora must be in- 
vestigated in relation to small areas so as to connect the varying 
living inhabitants of different areas with the varying physical 
A. Investigation ; 
NATURE 
conditions of those areas and with the varying association of the ; 
living inhabitants z¢er se. Only in this way can the relation of 
food-fishes to the physical conditions of the sea, and to their 
living associates be ascertained and data furnished for ultimately 
determining the causes of the local distribution of different kinds 
of food-fishes and of the periodic migrations of some kinds of 
them. 
(2) A thoroughly detailed and accurate knowledge of the 
food, habits, and movements of each of the important kinds of 
food-fishes (of which about five-and-twenty, together with six 
shell-fish important either as food or bait, may be reckoned), 
The relation of each of these kinds of fish to its fishing-ground 
must be separately ascertained ; its time and mode of reproduc- 
tion, the mode of fertilisation of its eggs, the growth of the 
embryo, the food and habits of the fry, the enemies of the young 
and of the adult, the relation of both young and adult to tem- 
perature, to influx of fresh water, to sewage contamination, to 
disturbing agencies such as trawling, and ordinary traffic. 
(3) An inquiry as to whether over a long period of years there 
has been an increase or a decrease in the abundance of each 
kind of food-fish on the chief fishing-grounds as a matter of 
fact, together with an inquiry as to the actual take of each kind © 
of fish in successive years, and further an inquiry as to any ac- 
companying variation in (a) the number of fishing-boats ; (4) 
the methods of fishing ; (c) the climatic conditions or other such 
possibly influential conditions as previous inquiry may have 
suggested. 
(4) An inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining experimentally 
whether the decrease in the yield of fishing-grounds, in regard ~ 
to each several species of food-fish can be remedied: (@) by _ 
artificial breeding of the fish ; (4) by protecting the young ; (c) 
by increasing its natural food ; (¢) by destruction of its enemies ; 
(e) by restrictive legislation as to time or place of fishing and | 
as to size of fish which may be taken and character of ishing 
apparatus which may be used. 
(5) An inquiry to ascertain whether, if periodic, natural 
causes are at work in determining the fluctuations of the yield — 
of fishing-grounds, their effect can be foretold, and whether this — 
effect can in any case be counteracted ; similarly to ascertain in — 
the case of migratory shoal-fish whether any simple and trust- 
worthy means can be brought into operation for the purpose of 
foretelling the places and times of their migrations so as to 
enable both fishermen and fish-dealers to be ready for their 
arrival. 
(6) An inquiry into the diseases of fish, especially in relation 
to salmon and other fresh-water fish. 
B. Practical Administration.—The chief heads under which 
this presents itself as distinct from the antecedent search for 
reliable data are :— 
(1) The management of an efficient ‘‘intelligence depart- 
ment,” giving weekly statistics of the fishing industry, the 
appearance and disappearance of certain fish at particular spots, 
the number of fishing-boats employed, the methods of fishing 
employed, the meteorological conditions. 
(2) The advising and enforcing of restrictions by the Legisla- 
ture as to time, place, and method of capture of fish. 
(3) The artificial breeding and rearing of fish to stock im- 
poverished fishing-grounds. 
(4) The leasing and management of the foreshore and sea- 
bottom in particular spots, for the purposes of oyster-culture 
and mussel-culture, and of marsh-lands near the sea for the 
formation of tanks and fish-ponds. 
(5) The opening up of new fishing-grounds and of new fish 
industries (curing and treatment of fish for commercial pur- 
ses). 
F (6) The introduction of new species of food-fish and shell- 
fish. 
D 
we he 
as 
Hie 0 a 1 
IlI.—General Organisation and Staff necessary to carry on the 
Inquiries and to put the Results attained into Practice 
It is a matter of fundamental importance to determine, first 
of all, whether it is desirable that these matters should be dealt 
with by a permanent staff, or, on the other hand, by the occa- 
sional employment of a scientific man—not habitually occupied 
in these inquiries—to attempt the solution of any particular 
problem which an unskilled official may present to him. 
Clearly there must be economy in employing permanently 
certain naturalists who will familiarise themselves with this 
