42 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



squares. The remaining five charts (Plates III. -VII.) 

 deal each with one or more groups of animals, and require 

 no further explanation — each has an explanatory accom- 

 panying list (see p. 52). 



A " Census " of the Sea. 



I have referred above to these charts in connection 

 with our ' k knowledge of the population of the sea- 

 bottom." This work, so far as the L.M.B.C. is 

 concerned, is an investigation in pure Zoology under- 

 taken with no ulterior economic motives, but it is also 

 clearly a first contribution towards that detailed investi- 

 gation of the sea-bottom over the whole of the Irish Sea 

 which I have recently pressed upon the attention of the 

 Lancashire Sea-Fisheries Committee and of the Fisheries 

 Department of the Board of Trade, as being at the present 

 time of primary importance to us as a nation interested 

 in great fishing industries. The Fishery Statistics collected 

 and published at present by the Board of Trade are, I 

 contend, inadequate. They do not give us the informa- 

 tion we require. The system does not seem to be designed 

 so as to realise and tackle the problem which ought to be 

 tackled. What we must aim at ascertaining is not what 

 a fisherman catches, but what there is for him to catch. 

 We must in fact get series of accurate observations which 

 will give us fair samples of the populations of the sea on 

 the different grounds at the different seasons. 



I have spoken of this in brief as aiming at taking an 

 approximate ''census" of the sea, but that, of course, is 

 too ambitious a word, and indicates an exactness to which 

 we probably could never hope to attain. Still the word 

 serves to remind us of our approximate aim, and if we can 

 even determine the numbers of a species on an area 

 between wide limits, it will be of great importance. The 



