104 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
seem desirable, if not indeed essential, from the pot of view 
of the industry and of public health alike. 
The two remaining articles by Dr. Johnstone, dealing 
with plaice fisheries in the district, scarcely require further 
remark. They are both the natural continuation of work 
upon the sizes of the plaice in various parts of the district 
and at different times, and their migrations in relation to 
the recognised fisheries, which Dr. Johnstone has been engaged 
upon for some years, and upon which he has written in previous 
reports. I am sure that this work when carefully examimed 
will commend itself to the Committee as givmg the kind of 
data upon which fisheries regulations and bye-laws of the 
future must be based. 
PLANKTON INVESTIGATIONS. 
Although the collection of plankton samples from the 
open sea has ceased, I have found it possible by obtaining 
a special permit from the authorities to have weekly samples 
taken across the mouth of Port Erin Bay at the South end 
of the Isle of Man, which is about as central and typical a 
locality as one could find in the Irish Sea. With the expert 
help of Mr. A. Scott and Miss H. M. Lewis these samples have 
been worked up in detail and we have in hand all the data 
for a further instalment of our “ Intensive Study ” of the 
microscopic life of the surface of the sea throughout the year. 
We give a summary of this in a short article at p. 133. 
NEED OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. 
Many “ Advisory ” and other Committees, both in con- 
nection with the great Government Departments and also 
amongst the leading Scientific Societies, are at present engaged 
in deliberations in connection with the great war we are waging, 
not merely with immediate and pressing war problems, but 
