SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 127 



(6) Various memoranda and reports that I have had 

 occasion to address to the Chairman and Committee 

 during the year. 



I shall remark upon some of these matters here, and the 

 others will be treated more fully in the separate sections 

 which follow. Last year I commenced the plan, which I 

 hope to be able to adhere to, of having in each annual 

 report a detailed account of some animal of local economic 

 importance. It was then a memoir on the common 

 Cockle, by Mr. Johnstone ; this time it is a full account 

 of two closely allied and very important Fish-Parasites, 

 Lemma and Lepeophtheirus, by Mr. Scott ; while next year 

 it will be the memoir on the Plaice by Mr. Cole and Mr. 

 Johnstone, for which the plates are already drawn. Mr. 

 Scott's remarks upon the effect which the fish-parasites 

 have on their hosts, and upon their nutrition and mode of 

 life, will be found of interest. The preparation of this 

 account of the fish-parasites has occupied a large portion 

 of Mr. Scott's time during that period of the year when 

 hatching operations were not in progress. 



An account of the hatching work will be found at p. 31. 

 The plan of storing up spawning fish* in the tanks in place 

 of trusting to the steamer for supplies has been most 

 successful, and the increase from the three and a half 

 millions of the previous year to fourteen millions of 

 young fish set free this year is most satisfactory. For the 

 rest, Mr. Scott's time has been filled up by collecting and 

 observing, by giving demonstrations to parties of fisher- 

 men, by experiments with shellfish, and by various other 

 pieces of useful work. The determination of the spawn- 



* We had over 100 adult flounders in the tanks. 1 see from the Report 

 of the Scottish Sea Fishery Board that in their first year's work at their 

 new hatchery at Aberdeen they had 400 spawning plaice, from which over 

 16 millions of fry were hatched. The female flounder, however, produces 

 about three times as many eggs as the plaice. 



