of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



345 



years Dr Hoek has urged upon the Dutch Government the necessity 

 of providing such a steamer, and no serious objection has been made to 

 the proposal ; the experiments with hired ships cannot be said to have 

 given results of consequence. As Holland is one of the countries chiefly 

 interested in the welfare of the North Sea fisheries, from which she 

 derives so much material advantage, it is only a question of time before 

 such a steamer, without which scientific fishery investigations cannot be 

 carried on satisfactorily, is provided. 



The various numbers of the monthly Bulletin concerning the fisheries * 

 contain much information, including extracts from the journals of the 

 cruisers, statistics of fish landed, information respecting harbours, &c. 

 The Zoological Station at Helder is to be enlarged. Last year the Dutch 

 herring fleet numbered 550 vessels as against 536 in 1893, 228 being 

 luggars or sloops and 322 bomschuiten. Professor M'Intosh's paper 

 ' Remarks on Trawling ' published in the last annual report of the Board 

 is translated in extenso. 



9. FRANCE. 



The French Government have decided to erect a hatchery for sea-fish 

 propagation, in connection with the Marine Laboratory at Tatihou, St 

 Vaast La Hougue, Normandy. Dr Roche, the Chief Inspector of the 

 Maritime Fisheries of France, visited Dunbar Hatchery some time ago, at 

 the request of his Government, to inspect the arrangements there, and he 

 was followed later by M. Malard, of the Tatihou Laboratory ; and the 

 French hatchery will be arrauged in the same manner as the one at 

 Dunbar, Captain Dannevig's apparatus being used. Dr Canu, of the 

 Marine Station at Boulogne-sur-nier, also visited the Dunbar establishment, 

 and has published a descriptive report of it. 



The official statistics of French fisheries that used to be published annually 

 have been intermitted for a year or two, pending re-organisation of the system 

 by which they were collected. It is understood that they were found to be 

 imperfect and in some ways misleading. In the official fishery Bulletins, 

 published monthly by the department of the Minister of Marine, there are 

 a number of interesting papers, f A considerable number of these deal 

 with oyster-culture, and Professor Thoulet, of Nancy, furnishes an elabo- 

 rate report of the oceanography of the Arcachon region, so famous for its 

 oysters. Other papers deal with trawl- fishing for shrimps, the cod-fisheries 

 at Iceland and at Newfoundland, the establishment of district schools for 

 instruction in subjects pertaining to marine fisheries, the mackerel fishery 

 on the coasts of Ireland, in which many French vessels participate, &c. 

 M. Raveret-Wattel describes marine pisciculture as carried on in several 

 countries, and Dr Canu furnishes a descriptive account of the marine 

 hatchery at Dunbar. Dr Georges Roche, the Chief Inspector, has 

 published a small, but very lucid and interesting work on the modern sea 

 fisheries of France. J A description is given, with illustrations, of the 

 various kinds of fishing carried on by French fishermen, both on French 

 coasts and on the coasts of other countries • there are also chapters on the 

 curing and preservation of fish, and on the measures which should be 

 taken to deal with the depopulation of littoral waters. 



The official journal of the Societe Nationale d'Acclimatation de France 

 also contains several papers of interest § relating to fisheries, but most of 



* M ededcelingen over Visscherij. 



t Ministere de la Marine. Bulletin des Piches maritimes. 

 X Peches maritimes modernes de la France, Paris, 1894. 

 § Revue de Sciences naturelles appliquAes. 



