SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. DAIL) 
purest in our district. But while this may be the case 
with the cockles taken near Southport itself, and 
relatively high up the foreshore, it may not be the case 
with shell-fish taken from nearer the middle of the Ribble 
Hstuary. The cockles from Ansdell are undoubtedly 
polluted, and this may be the case with the shell-fish in 
various parts of the shore adjacent to Lytham, St. Annes, 
and Blackpool. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the beds 
there can escape contamination. Much more caution is 
necessary im expressing an opinion with regard to the 
cockles from Formby and Leasowe shores. There is no 
direct evidence of the transmission of disease by means of 
the shell-fish from these places—at least I know of none 
and this goes far towards depriving the equivocal bacterio- 
logical results presented above of any significance. 
Probably the bacterial contents of the shell-fish may 
represent only that general pollution of the sea which is 
to be observed almost everywhere in the neighbourhood 
of great towns, and which may be regarded as possessing 
no harmful significance It is, of course, obvious that 
the construction of new sewer outfalls at either of these 
places would materially affect the question of the con- 
tamination of the shell-fish there. At the present time 
there is no evidence of “ first-class,’ and presumably 
dangerous pollution. 
I].—Mussels from Piel Shore. 
During March and April of 1908 I made three 
analyses of mussels taken from .Piel shore between the 
Life-boat slip and the old Slagbank. The analyses were 
made for a particular purpose and would have no special 
significance if it were not for the fact that during October 
and November of the same year a certain amount of 
mussel-fishing was practised in this very locality. The 
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