112 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
the French pilchards or Norwegian autumn-caught brisling. 
There is certamly a field here for industrial research directed — 
towards the discovery of processes (such as variations on the 
formulae of the pickles, spices and sauces employed, or varia- 
tions in the methods of smoking and cooking) which can be 
utilised so as to compensate for the natural “ wateriness ” and 
lack of fat in the mferior winter-caught fish : English factory 
processes are certainly apt to become stereotyped. But we 
must always remember the factor of profit—one which plays 
an all-important part in the factory, but does not matter at all 
in the laboratory. It is here that the experimental factory 
ought to intervene between the laboratory and the commer- 
cially-run factory. 
Scientific research must at first, at all events, be restricted 
to a study of the actual results of established processes and, 
later on, to the investigation of the results of varying those 
processes in the ways suggested above. It should endeavour 
to answer the question why different results follow upon 
variations in factory processes. If such answers can be given 
it would generally follow that the research, after the adoption 
of a change in process, would react on the factory methods 
and suggest other changes—at least, that is what one hopes 
will be the case. 
Remarks on the Analyses made. 
The methods adopted in the preparation of this report 
are, in the main, similar to those followed in the Report of 
1917.* A routine of methods was adopted in order to save time 
and be readv to deal with more numerous samples than were 
actually obtained. The samples were always composite ones. 
From a sample of fresh sprats or whitebait about 12 to 20 
fishes, representative of those sent, were selected, and sections 
‘ 
* Report for 1917 of the Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Laboratory, pp. 
13-59,_1918, 
