86 TRANSACTIONS LIVEEPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



exceptions to this attitude : that of Professor Mcintosh, for 

 instance, as expressed in his well-known book, " The Resources 

 of the Sea." One must not forget that " over-fishing " — or 

 rather, a progressive diminution in the quantity of socially 

 valuable fish taken from the North Sea — has not yet been 

 demonstrated beyond all shadow of doubt. But however that 

 may be it was agreed that there had been much less trawling 

 during the war years than was formerly the case, and so there 

 ought to have accumulated a " stock " of large plaice. This 

 was, of course, the species upon which most research had been 

 made before the war, and the Council had already " adum- 

 brated " certain tentative proposals (I think that is the best 

 way to put it) with regard to international regulations. It- 

 was important, then, that the effect of the great decrease of 

 exploitation should be estimated : were there more large 

 plaice in the North Sea in 1920 than in 1913 ? The Danish 

 experts brought forward what, to my mind, was an uncon- 

 vincing argument that large plaice were more numerous in the 

 latter year than in the former one, and the English investigators 

 produced data which, I think, put the matter beyond dispute. 

 But whether the increase in the larger plaice was to be traced 

 to under-fishing in 1915-18, or to a natural periodicity was not 

 so certain — I return to this point later. Anyhow, another 

 year of " intensive plaice investigation " was decided upon and 

 arrangements for the conduct of this were drafted. The nature 

 of the possible restrictions to be submitted, later on, to the 

 various governments was not formally discussed, but it was 

 understood that these would probably take a certain form. 

 Upon the condition that the Council would come to the scratch, 

 as it were, and suggest some legislative restrictions depended 

 the future of the investigations — this was the attitude, it must 

 be remembered, at a time when a partial collapse of the British 

 steam- trawling industry had already been anticipated, and 

 when it was fairly certain that the exploitation of the home 



