of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



335 



Several papers dealing with sea-fisheries and marine biology are 

 published in the Proceedings of the Liverpool Biological Society,* in 

 which is also contained an account of the Biological Station at Port 

 Erin, in the Isle of Man. It may be stated that a measure has passed 

 the House of Keys conferring powers to make fishery bye-laws and 

 other regulations upon a Committee in the Isle of Man. 



Once each year a conference is held between delegates from the 

 various English Sea-Fisheries Committees and the officials of the Board 

 of Trade, at which various questions concerning the sea-fisheries are 

 discussed, the proceedings being afterwards officially published. At 

 the conference in 1894 f the following were among the subjects discussed : 

 — undersized fish, increase of minimum size of crabs allowed to be 

 taken, protection of berried lobsters, scientific research and fish hatcheries. 

 The representatives of the various districts were unanimous in recom- 

 mending legislation against the landing or selling of immature flat-fishes, 

 on the lines adopted by the Select Committee of the House of Commons 

 in 1893; and it was generally agreed that the cost of scientific research 

 and fish-hatching should be borne by the Imperial exchequer rather 

 than by local rates. 



2. NEWFOUNDLAND. 



In the Annual Report of the Newfoundland department of fisheries for 

 last year, | it is stated that, in the course of the season, 346,000,000 eggs 

 of the cod were collected, of which 124,500,000 were rejected, and 

 221,500,000 hatched, the young fish being 'planted' in Trinity, Concep- 

 tion and Bonavista Bays. This shows an output of 64 per cent., which 

 must be considered a satisfactory result when the large quantity of 

 spawn that was handled is taken into account. During the five years 

 that the hatching has been in operation the number of cod fry hatched 

 has been as follows : — 



1890, 17,100,000 



1891, 39,650,000 



1892, 165,254,000 



1893, 201,435,000 



1894, . . . . . . 221,500,000 



Total 644,939,000 



An extraordinary abundance of codfish of various sizes was found in 

 Trinity Bay, and their presence there, while absent from the neighbouring 

 bays, 'is exactly what might have been anticipated on the supposition 

 1 that the active propagation of cod from the hatchery, during the previous 

 ' four years, had proved successful in restocking waters which had been 

 1 largely depleted.' Fishermen came from other parts to fish in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Dildo, and it is pointed out that one-year-old cod were most 

 abundant, and next to these two-year-old ; ' fishermen,' it is added, 5 who 

 { were previously sceptical about the process of artifical propagation, were 

 ' unable to resist the evidence thus furnished of the success of the 

 ' hatchery.' Fry from the hatchery were transported in suitable apparatus 

 to other bays, up to a distance of 120 miles. Large numbers of the eggs 



* Proceedings and Transactions Liverpool Biological Society, vol. viii., 1894. 



T Fourth Annual Meeting of Representatives of Authorities under the Sea Fisheries 

 Regulation Act, 1888, London, 1894. 



t Annual Report of the Nevfoundland Department of Fisheries for tlie year 1894, 

 St Johns, N. F., 1895. 



