490 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 
as observations on fisheries in general, do not lead to pessimistic views on the 
subject. Such a perusal, indeed, bears out the propriety both of the caution 
exercised in recommending closures in 1884, and the deductions made in 1898 in 
the ‘ Resources of the Sea,’ so far as the safety of the food-fishes is concerned, 
Within the experience of one life not a few of the important food-fishes have 
been the subject of gloomy forebodings to the fishing community, and especially 
to those who have emphasised their views. The herring, the cod, the haddock, 
the plaice, the lemon-dab, the sole, and the turbot have each in turn occupied 
this position. Yet after all these years is any one of these on the road to 
extinction—or even to a serious diminution when the respective efforts to capture 
are taken into consideration? It is but a slender argument, for example, to point 
to the statistical diminution of the plaice in a single rich bay within recent years, 
without taking cognisance of the fact that in the first brush of uninterrupted 
fishing, or with the novelty of the nets, the men used all their energies and every 
art to capture, whereas recently many follow less hardy and strenuous pursuits in 
addition to casual fishing. Instead of increased exertion in the keen competition 
it is sufficient for some to assert that the trawlers outside the limit have swept 
off all the fishes. Fishing needs much time and all the energies of the fine, hardy 
men in whom the country rightly takes a deep interest; and successful fishing in 
certain cases likewise needs freedom from agitation and the rousing of class 
prejudices. Some, indeed, hold that crofting and fishing are incompatible with 
success in either, and there may be a basis of truth in this view. At any rate, it 
is not reasonable to place weight on the reduction in captures of any fish without 
an inquiry into the persistence of the methods. 
In connection with the supposed diminution of the food-fishes of the sea, 
notice on the present occasion can only be taken of the plaice, which for years 
has been a source of frequent solicitude. It is known that a limited area, under 
certain conditions, may be dennded of its large plaice, but this does not imply 
the serious diminution of the species, for it is so widely dispersed over the North 
Sea as to be favourably placed for survival. The gaps made by the removal of 
the large forms are by-and-by filled by the smaller, which on almost every sandy 
beach swarm in vast multitudes. So long as this continues the plaice is com- 
paratively safe. Besides, it is well to remember that Nature is able to supply 
the whole of the common eels of the western border of Europe and of the Mediter- 
ranean from eggs shed in mid-Atlantic, as Dr. Johs. Schmidt has recently so 
graphically told. Compared with this remarkable condition, it is but a simple 
problem for the plaice to hold its own—scattered as the adults are over the 
North Sea, spawning so near our shores, and the eggs, larve, and young in count- 
less multitude on every suitable site. Further, as if to impress the lesson, there 
is the instance of the estuary of the Thames, where for hundreds of years a vast 
destruction of young soles by the shrimpers has taken place daily, and yet the 
adults have not been extirpated. 
4. The Survey of the Freshwater Fauna of the Indian Empire now 
being carried oul by the Indian Museum. By Nruson ANNANDALE, 
D:Seis F.A.S.B. 
About forty years ago the late Mr. J. Wood-Mason began to collect in Calcutta 
the decapod crustacea of Indian and Burmese rivers, lakes, and ponds with a view 
to the preparation of a monograph. Although he only published a few’ short 
papers on the erabs, his collection proved of the utmost value to Colonel 
Alcock in his account of Potomonide (1910) in the ‘ Catalogue of Indian Decapod 
Crustacea in the collection of the Indian Museum.’ Indeed, it may now be said 
that India is the only tropical country in which the freshwater crabs have been 
worked out on a satisfactory system. About six years ago I became specially 
interested in the fauna of certain pools of brackish water in the delta of the 
Ganges which had been visited soon after their formation in the middle of 
the nineteenth century by the late Dr. F. Stoliczka, and had provided him with 
the subject for a paper of great interest on an Actinian and a Polyzoon he 
found in them. It soon became evident, however, that to obtain material for 
a proper comparison of the estuarine fauna of the Ganges with the freshwater 
