58 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



bearing of the statistics as to the distribution of fish 

 collected by Mr. Dawson on board the steamer. A fuller 

 discussion of these results can only take place after the 

 accumulation of further statistics extending over a couple 

 of years. The report ends with a note on Lobster hatch- 

 ing; and an Appendix on the methods of Oyster and 

 Mussel culture adopted in France, illustrated by three 

 plates. 



The Food of Young- Fishes. 



One of the objects we have set before us has been to 

 determine what the fish feed upon in our district at all 

 stages of their lives, and so we have taken any opportunities 

 that offered of examining, small individuals. When this 

 investigation has been extended, as we hope to extend it 

 during next spring and summer, to still younger stages 

 including larval and young post-larval forms it may have 

 the practical value of enabling us to succeed in finding 

 suitable organisms, such as certain Diatoms and Copepoda, 

 upon which young fish hatched artificially may be reared 

 through the earlier and more critical stages of their 

 life-history. 



As a matter of fact we have already made during this 

 last summer at the aquarium of the Port Erin Biological 

 Station some experiments in breeding Copepoda in tanks, 

 and I see no reason to doubt that we could cultivate at 

 least some species in large quantities if required. In one 

 of our aquaria we have had now for six months enormous 

 swarms of Idya furcata, and in another we have quantities 

 of Harpacticus fulvus which are reproducing freely. The 

 Harpacticidae seem on the whole to be the easiest to 

 cultivate, and it is consequently important to notice that 

 in the young Plaice we have examined, by far the most 

 important constituent of the food seems to be the Har- 



