246 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to be B. coli. We are then justified in concluding that 

 half of the colonies recorded as " colon-like colonies " are 

 those of B. coli. 



II. The Mussel Beds in the Mersey Estuary. 



The Egremont Mussel Bed. 



The dangerous pollution of this mussel bed was first 

 noticed by Dr. Craigmile, Medical Officer to the Wallasey 

 Urban District Council. Some years ago this gentleman 

 made a report to his Council and drew attention to a case 

 where two persons — a father and son — both developed 

 enteric fever in a very severe form in consequence of 

 eating mussels (or cockles) from the bed near the 

 Egremont Ferry slip, and one of them died.* The Health 

 Committee then took action, and posted notices along 

 the river wall, from Seacombe to the Shore Road on the 

 Wallasey sandhills, warning the public of the danger 

 incurred by gathering and eating mussels from this fore- 

 shore, and forbidding this practice. Further than this, 

 however, the Committee could not go, as the law gave 

 them no power to prosecute. The^ practice of gathering 

 mussels, for sale as food, from the Wallasey bed, 

 continued then. About the beginning of 1903 the late 

 Mr. R. A. Dawson took the matter up, and generally the 

 whole question of the pollution by sewage of the shellfish 

 beds in the Lancashire and Western Fisheries District, 

 and both he and Professor Herdman gave evidencet on 

 this subject before the Royal Commission on Sewage 

 Disposal, which was then considering the question of the 

 pollution of shellfish beds by sewage and trade effluents. 



* See Dr. Craigmile 's letter to the late Mr. Dawson ; printed in 

 4th Rept. Roy. Comm. Sewage Disposal, Vol. II., p. 3; [cd. 1884] 

 1904. 



f 4th Rept. Roy. Cornm. Sewage Disposal, Vol. II., pp. 1 and 90; 

 [cd. 1884] 1904. 



