202 ANIMAL LIFE AND HUMAN PEOGKESS 



mackerel and sprats. The best use, economically, that can be 

 made, for example, of the summer herring fishery in the Irish 

 Sea, or in the Hebrides, is to cure in various ways (kippering, 

 salting, etc.) the great bulk of the catch. Distribution can 

 thus be controlled, consumption can be spread over a longer 

 period, the product may be improved as a food, and local 

 industries established. As Dr. James Johnstone has pointed 

 out, " a clamant need of the present time, and indeed of normal 

 times, is the curing of summer-caught herrings for consumption 

 in the winter months, when fat-rich foods are more useful 

 than in the warmer months." ^ 



Another example that may be mentioned is the winter 

 sprat fishery in Morecambe Bay. 2 During the height of the 

 fishery last winter fully seventy tons of fish were landed each 

 day, and the value to the fishermen of such a catch was over 

 £300. A ton of sprats contains on the average 130,000 fish. 

 In a day's fishing, therefore, nine millions of sprats may be 

 captured, and this goes on day after day without making any 

 appreciable difierence to the abundance of the fish. The 

 question has naturally occurred in connection with this and 

 other similar fisheries elsewhere, whether it would not be 

 desirable, with a view to a more perfect distribution and more 

 economic utilisation of this food-product, to estabhsh curing 

 or canning industries for the pmpose of converting the tem- 

 porary superabundance of the fresh, perishable fish into a 

 more permanent and highly nutritious article of diet. It is 

 satisfactory to know that the matter is now being investigated 

 from both the scientific and the commercial points of view, and 

 that experiments are being made which, it is hoped, will lead 

 to such preserving industries being established before the next 

 fishing season comes round. 



The United States Bureau of Fisheries, with its very ex- 

 tensive organisation and ample resources,^ sets an example to 



1 Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Laboratory Eeportfor 1916, p. 23. 



- An interesting account of this fishery was given by Mr. A. Scott in the 

 Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Laboratory Report for 1915. 



' The last Annual Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries shows that 

 the appropriations for the Bureau of Fisheries for the fiscal year 1917 

 amounted to $1,144,850— about £230,000. 



