86 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



locally, and since then investigations have been carried 

 on at various points round the British coasts, and for the 

 last few years the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal 

 has been taking evidence and deliberating on the subject. 

 Both Mr. Dawson and I, in our evidence before the Royal 

 Commission, have drawn attention to the very serious 

 state of affairs on some parts of the Lancashire and 

 Cheshire coasts, and we have lately planned a more 

 thorough examination into the condition of the shell-fish 

 beds of the district. Mr. Scott has inspected for me 

 several of the mussel and cockle producing areas in the 

 northern part of Lancashire, and Mr. Johnstone has made 

 a bacteriological examination of the samples of shell-fish 

 that have been sent to the laboratory . As the Royal 

 Commission has also just issued a Reportt dealing with 

 these same questions, and very much on the lines we have 

 adopted, I have thought it appropriate to devote a few 

 pages further on to a discussion of the matter. 



A suggestion, made by Mr. Fell, that we should report 

 upon the intricate question of the inter-relations between 

 shrimps and young flatfish, has led to the preliminary 

 statement of the subject which, with Mr. Johnstone's 

 help, I have drawn up. It is evident that a great deal of 

 exact information is still required. I have tried to focus 

 attention upon what is known and what is unknown, upon 

 what the essential problems are and what investigations 

 are necessary in order to solve them. But it is clear that 

 this is one of the matters upon which we cannot get 

 wholly satisfactory evidence until we have, on the West 

 Coast of England, a steamer devoted solely to scientific 

 fisheries work, so that an organised scheme of investiga- 

 tion, combined with the collection of statistics, can be 

 carried out. It would probably require a couple of years 



| Pollution of Tidal Waters with special reference to contamina- 

 tion of Shell-fish. London, 1904. 



