150 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



is very urgent, since Fisheries legislation is blocked for 

 want of the information which such investigations alone 

 can give. 



" A scheme of scientific work has been carried out for 

 some years on board the l John Fell,' but the observations 

 — although useful for many purposes — have been neither 

 sufficiently numerous nor sufficiently regular to admit of 

 reliable conclusions as to the abundance, movements, and 

 life-histories of the fish being drawn. Xow that a more 

 efficient steamer has been obtained, I would urge strongly 

 upon the Committee the importance — and even necessity 

 — if we are to make any advance in our knowledge of 

 how and where fishes live in the sea, of devoting a certain 

 amount of the steamers time to the taking of regular 

 periodic observations at fixed points according to a 

 definite plan. 



" After full consideration of what is desirable and what 

 is possible in our District, with a steamer which has also 

 to carry out police and other administrative duties, I have 

 drawn up the following, which I believe to be a workable 

 scheme, and one which is calculated to give us the kind 

 of information we require as a basis for the just and 

 adequate regulation and administration of our District. 



' k I venture to think that if some such plan of observa- 

 tions had been adopted fifty or even twenty years ago, it 

 is not too much to say that the results would be invaluable 

 at the present day to the Naturalist and to the Fisheries 

 Administrator alike. In face of the statistics so acquired, 

 many of our Fisheries questions could not have arisen. 

 There could no longer be doubt as to whether a particular 

 Fishery, or Coast Fisheries in general, had or had not 

 declined ; as to whether the destruction of immature dabs 

 benefitted or not the neighbouring population of young 

 plaice ; as to whether solenettes can possibly interfere 



