SEA FISHERIES LABORATORY. 139 
CoNCLUSION. 
This first report* on the Sea-Fisheries Laboratory only 
deals with eight months work, and that work, commenced 
suddenly in the middle of the summer, with a new assistant 
strange to the ground, has been of necessity to a large 
extent tentative and introductory. We may reasonably 
hope that much more systematic work will be possible 
during the coming season, now that there is a permanent 
steamer suitable for work at sea, and that the bailiffs know 
what we want sent by them, and that we in the laboratory 
know better what the nature and products of the different 
parts of the district are; and naturally—as has been 
found in other places—the value of the work will increase 
year by year as the statistics are accumulated, and as the 
facilities for carrying on the work increase. For I hope 
this is only the beginning of a very much larger system of 
the application of scientific methods and knowledge to the 
investigation of the fisheries of our neighbourhood and of 
the country generally. When we consider what is being 
done elsewhere for the biological investigation of sea- 
fisheries, we realize what a very small beginning has 
been made, and how much more Lancashire ought to do. 
In America the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries 
have a number of laboratories, stations, and hatcheries, a 
large staff of Naturalists, and devote a large grant annually 
to the scientific work. Germany no sooner obtained 
possession of Heligoland than she established there a 
Biological Station with a staff of Naturalists to investigate 
the fisheries of the neighbouring German Coasts. France, 
Italy and other Huropean states are devoting much time 
and money to the benefit of their fishing industries. 
Finally the Scottish Fishery Board has a Biological Station, 
as well as a Fish Hatchery, at Dunbar, another Biological 
Station (under Prof. M‘Intosh) at St. Andrews, a Lobster 
*In which, for brevity, much reference to published papers has been omitted. 
