xl Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
students on the dissection of the skate. These notes gave him 
even more labour than the previous publication on the invertebrates. 
Besides his duties in connection with the class of Zoology in the 
University, he was employed by the Fishery Board for Scotland to 
carry on various researches on fisheries’ subjects and tabulate 
results, but he was not responsible for certain of the deductions 
made from the latter. His singularly clear and cautious mind made 
him slow to arrive at conclusions — especially in cases fraught with 
both doubt and difficulty. One of his earlier papers on fisheries’ 
questions was a most careful and methodical report on the sprat- 
fishing of 1883-84. He accurately pointed out the various 
distinctions between the sprat and the herring (with the exception 
of the pelagic egg of the sprat — then unknown), and concluded by 
demonstrating that in the Firths of Forth and Tay, and in the 
Moray Firth, the sprat fishermen captured during the winter 
months 143,000,000 young herrings. 
He continued his researches, notwithstanding very feeble health, 
in 1885, and — his father being then Lord Provost of Aberdeen — 
he besides took much interest in the arrangements for the meeting 
of the British Association at Aberdeen in the autumn of the same 
year. He attended many of the meetings of the Association — 
especially in Section D (Biology) — though he did not communicate 
any of his papers. He had much to do, however, in aiding his 
father in his entertainments at Springhill, and in making his guests 
(amongst whom were Sir Lyon Playfair, President of the Associa- 
tion, Lady Playfair, and Lord Rayleigh) spend a most pleasant 
week. 
How fairly entering into the spirit of the fisheries’ work, he 
took up the question of the varieties of the herring. In the skilful 
hands, and by the exact methods, of Mr Matthews certainty took the 
place of doubt, and though difficulties still remained, he at any rate 
reduced the errors from limitation of observation to a minimum. 
Heincke’s paper on the varieties of the Baltic herring did not come 
into his hands before his own observations were nearly completed, 
but he was able to make a comparison of the methods. The labour 
involved in this paper may be estimated when it mentioned that 
16,000 measurements and 20,000 subsequent calculations were 
included, and that the general size, dimensions of the head, differ- 
