MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 43 



of the enquiry, be premature, and perhaps lacking in 

 accuracy, but it may be remarked that what is seen in the 

 first series of sections of the young stages of buds is more 

 in accord with the conclusions of Eitter and of Lefevre 

 than of other investigators. 



Extension of the Work. 



There are several matters, in addition to the routine work 

 of the Station, which call for special attention this year. 



One of these is the necessity for further exploration in 

 the North Atlantic. Attention has repeatedly been drawn 

 of late years to the importance, both from the purely 

 scientific and the industrial points of view, of the problems 

 involved. The Scandinavians (Petterssen, Ekman, Hjort, 

 and others) have succeeded in unravelling some of the 

 interlacing belts of water from Arctic, Baltic, North Sea, 

 and Atlantic sources which sweep past their coast, and 

 affect the movements of migratory fish. It is only by 

 such work that we can hope to explain rationally the 

 mysterious movements of the Herring — perhaps the most 

 important food fish on our coast. 



It was formerly supposed* that when the Herrings 

 left our shores in autumn they retired to the far north, and 

 next season started from the Arctic regions on their annual 

 migration, led by ooe large old fish — the " King of the 

 Herrings." We now believe that breeding and feeding are 

 the two impulses that govern the movements of a fish. 

 The Herring comes into shallow water on our coast to 

 spawn, and when it migrates in search of food from 

 the Atlantic to the North Sea, or from our West 

 Coast out into deep water, we have reason to believe 

 that it is following those minute organisms which 



* E.g., see Pennants' British Zoology, and article Ichthyology in Ency, 

 Brit, for 1857. 



