116 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
the species of fish landed are therefore necessary. The Royal 
Society Food (War) Committee have adopted the series of 
analyses of American fishes made by Atwater and Woods,* 
‘* modified in accordance with the special characteristics of the 
British supply.” Now these American analyses are obviously 
very carefully made and may be taken as most reliable, but 
after all they are analyses of American species of fishes. Some 
of the species are the same (Linnean) ones in both English and 
American seas, cod, haddock, whiting, herring (for instances), 
but it by no means follows that the composition of the flesh is 
the same. Soles and plaice occur in the Royal Society Com- 
mittee’s list, but these do not occur in Atwater’s analyses, and 
the North Sea sole and plaice are not found in American waters. 
Eels, hake, skates and rays are different species in American 
and Kuropean waters. Salmon may be the same or different. 
The Shell-fish (Molluscs and Crustacea) are different species. 
The “ other kinds” are mostly different, but they are not dis- 
tinguished, zoologically or nutritively, in the Report. Hven if 
the species were the same, one must insist, the chemical com- 
position cannot be taken as the same unless we know that it 
isso. Hstimates of the energy, or food-values of British-caught 
fishes cannot therefore be regarded as reasonably approximate 
if they are based on analyses of American caught fishes. Why 
were these American analyses taken ? There are many others 
which apply to European species.t 
Here we are only concerned with the herring. Atwater’s 
analyses dealt with 4 fish only, and the source of these is not 
stated, nor their conditions, nor sexual phases. The edible 
* “ Chemical Composition of American Food Materials,’ Bulletin No. 28 
(revised edition) U.S.A. Department of Agriculture, 1906. The original paper 
is “The Chemical Composition and Nutritive Value of Food Fishes and 
Aquatic Invertebrates,’ W. O. Atwater, U.S.A. Commission of Fish and 
Fisheries, Commissioners’ Report, 1888 (1892), pp. 679-868, Plates LXXXI- 
LXXXIX. 
t KGnig, Dr. J., “‘ Chemie der menschlichen Nahrungs- und Genussmittel.” 
I. Band. Berlin, 1903, pp. 43-70, 1456-1458. The work is a compilation of all 
available analyses of fish and shell-fish. 
