TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 641 



ebergetically administered, are sufficient for each division of the country. 

 ' Adequate scientific investigations ' is a term capable of various interpretations 

 as a basis for legislation. Experience shows that the most extended and the 

 most complete series of investigations in regard to special areas — viz., those of the 

 Scotch Fishery Board, by means of the Garland — were not followed by legislation 

 on the lines of the results. 



The members of the three separate Boards should be representative of the 

 various fishing interests, of legal knowledge and of scientific experience in the 

 fisheries, the advice of the Koyal Society being taken in regard to the latter.* 

 Each Board should have one efficient ship, a well-equipped marine laboratory, or 

 two where these already exist, and a small but efficient staft" of scientific 

 workers. The Boards should be in constant touch with each other so as to avoid 

 duplication. They should retain the control of the scientific fisheries' researches, 

 the necessary organisation for each, and the collection of statistics. District 

 committees would be useful in the management of oyster and mussel beds, 

 cockle-grounds, and similar departments, but all scientific work in connection 

 even with these, and on the salmonoids, should be under the authority of the 

 central Boards. 



Finally, and above all, it must be clearly understood that the most expensive, 

 most complete, and most skilfully conducted international surveys cannot alter the 

 laws of Nature, or cause the .sea to hold a larger number of food-fishes at a given 

 time than the circumstances of capture and other conditions warrant. Great 

 and fortuitous variations have occurred, now occur, and will occur, in the 

 abundance of all marine food-fishes. Nothing more may accrue from the most 

 searching inquiry. This caution is the more necessary in view of the readiness 

 of the Government to launch into the somewhat expensive undertaking of the 

 international scheme. Yet there is no fear of the extinction of any species of 

 food-fish, especially of those important to man. Furthermore, tishes have 

 abounded in the primaeval as in the modern seas, although the ravages of the 

 gigantic re])tilian and other fish-destroyers, which in some cases were distributed 

 over the whole expanse of the ocean, could not have been less than even the 

 far-reaching methods of man. In neither period has extinction ensued from the 

 prevailing agencies, nor is it likely to take place under these conditions in the 

 future. 



2. The Tnteryiational Investigation of the North Sea. 

 By "Walter Garstang, M.A. 



3. Certain Objections to the Proposed Scheme of International Investi' 

 gations of the North Sea. By D. Noel Paton, M.D., B.Sc. 



To Great Britain, with its preponderating interest in the fisheries of the North 

 Sea, the most important point to be determined by a scientific investigation of that 

 area is whether there is or is not a decrease in the number of fish. 



The question considered in the paper is ' how far the proposed scheme of inter- 

 national investigation is calculated to give information of value upon that point.' 



It is indicated that the work is to be done by a comparatively small number of 

 steamers working along certain lines, and that this implies — 



1st. That conclusions as to the general distribution of fish are to be drawn 

 from samples taken from limited areas. 



'2nd. That the take per ship — or per capturing unit — is to be adopted as the 

 means of measuring the abundance or density of the fish. 



The available evidence as to how far the adoption of these methods is justifiable 

 is considered. 



' The Government has in its present scheme entirely avoided the Koyal Society. 

 1902. T X 



