In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, there are two specimens of the common eel, in which the ovaries are much enlarged, greatly distending the abdomen, and evidently very nearly ripe. Both those specimens were presented by Mr. Geo. Buckeridge, a salesman in Billingsgate Market, who deals largely in eels. The following are certain particulars concerning the specimens:—

(1) Length 15 in., weight 4½ oz. Presented Jan. 4, 1894.

(2) Length 19 in., girth round the abdomen 5½in., weight 10¼ oz. Presented Sept. 25, 1895.

The following pages are intended to be preliminary to a fuller report which I shall hope to publish later on. For the present I shall confine myself to an account of the objects in view of which these investigations were begun, and of the method by which they have so far been carried out. I further propose to append a brief summary of some of the facts ascertained, reserving a more detailed statement for a future occasion.

In the previous number of the Journal, I described my reasons for doubting whether the conclusions drawn by Mr. Holt, concerning the size at which plaice become mature, would hold good for the whole of the North Sea; and also whether the evidence he relied upon, in distinguishing mature and immature plaice, was sufficient. I stated that, as an actual fact, one sample of mature plaice, which were much below the limits of size determined by Mr. Holt, had come into my hands. I suggested, as a probability, that the presence of dead degenerating eggs in the tissue of the ovary was a proof that the fish had spawned, was a spent, and therefore a mature specimen. My words were: “It cannot be asserted as a certainty that these granular masses never occur in an immature ovary; to settle the doubt it will be necessary to make a careful examination of plaice in November and December, when all fish which are about to spawn will have a large amount of yolk in the eggs, and all fish in which the eggs are transparent and yolkless must be immature.” It was already known that these degenerating eggs do occur in spent ovaries, from which the ripe eggs have recently been discharged, and which bear evidence of the fact in their somewhat large size, flaccid and collapsed condition, and usually in the presence of a few detached ripe eggs in their interior.

At Grimsby there are a number of trawlers—some steamers and some sailing vessels, which are locally called Cleethorpers, and regularly fish on the grounds near the Humber, returning to port at the end of the week. I went out in one of these, the S.S. Rhine, on July 22nd. My object was to examine the grounds near the mouth of the Humber and the Wash, in order to compare them with the grounds off the German coast. We shot the trawl at 2 p.m. the same day, having steamed 55 miles by the log from the Newsand Lightship, at a position a few miles west of the Coal Pit or N.E. Hole, as it is named on the chart illustrating Mr. Holt's description of the Grimsby Trawl Fishery. The depth during the haul was 13 to 18 fathoms. The temperature at the surface was 58° F.

As my paper in the previous number indicates, my interest in these investigations was chiefly excited by the fact that no satisfactory explanation appeared to have been discovered for the remarkable abundance of small plaice in the German Bight of the North Sea. The explanation suggested, and held by many to be sufficient, was that there was a current from west to east which carried floating or buoyant objects towards the German shores, and that, therefore, the buoyant eggs and larvæ of the plaice were carried thither in great numbers. Dr. Fulton has recently made direct experiments on the course of the drift, by putting floating bottles into the sea in the neighbourhood of the Firth of Forth. In certain cases, out of groups of bottles put overboard at the same spot, some were afterwards found on the English Coast to the south, and others on the coast of Schleswig and the Island of Heligoland. The course thus determined for the general circulation would probably cause more of the plaice spawn, shed in the North Sea, to be conveyed to the German and Danish Coasts than to English. But the difficulty that perplexed me was that the peculiarity of the German grounds seemed to consist not in the greater numbers of plaice generally, but in the exclusive occurrence of small plaice at distances from land at which, on the opposite English Coast, large mature plaice seemed also to occur with the small.

Before the Parliamentary Committee, which conducted an inquiry in 1893, the trawling industry of Lowestoft, as represented by Mr. J. W. Hame, strongly opposed any restrictions being enforced as to the size of fish landed. One of the reasons given was that restriction was unnecessary, because small fish, especially plaice, were not landed at that port. Mr. Hame told the Committee that the day before he gave his evidence, namely, on May 10th, he turned out two boxes of plaice caught towards the Dutch coast, perhaps from 30 to 40 miles off that coast. He said that one box contained 110 fish, the smallest 12 in. long, and the other contained 90 fish, the smallest 13 in. long. These statements are quite at variance with my observations made at Lowestoft, during September and October this year, and I cannot help thinking that Mr. Hame was mistaken as to the grounds from which the fish came, or else was not sufficiently accurate in his numbers and measurements. The facts show that, on the one hand, a size-limit of 8 in. for plaice, as proposed by the Parliamentary Committee, would make no appreciable difference to the deep-sea trawling industry at Lowestoft, and, on the other hand, that higher limits, such as that which was proposed by Mr. Holt for the protection of the German grounds, would affect that port very seriously.

Amongst a great number of crabs collected in Plymouth Sound for my studies of the central nervous system, one specimen was found with a very interesting abnormality. The thorax of the crab—a female—is normal. The length of the carapace is 47 mm., the breadth 64 mm. The claws and legs are in the right positions, and of normal proportions, with the exception of the fourth leg on the left side, which is smaller than usual. In my opinion, this leg was broken some time before the crab came in, and was not yet quite regenerated. The first four segments of the abdomen are also normal. Each has a couple of pedes spurii. To the fifth segment, which in the crab is always legless, a large leg is fastened on the left side. (Fig. 1.)

The following notes are based upon observations made during April and the first half of May, 1895. Although the Plumularidœ were the special objects of study, a number of facts concerning other forms were noticed, which, together with the discussion of certain matters brought out in the special study of the Plumularidœ, were considered by the Director to be of sufficient interest for publication in this Journal. It will be understood that no general discussion of the hydroids at Plymouth is attempted, nor is it my purpose to give a list of the hydroid forms of that exceedingly rich field, no species being mentioned unless some new fact has been observed concerning it.

The material from which the present list of Parasitic Copepoda has been compiled was obtained in part by the examination of fish at the Marine Biological Association's Laboratory, but to a still greater extent by daily and diligent search at certain fishmongers' in the town. The following are the most important works consulted:—

“Every legislative restriction means the creation of a new offence. In the case of fishery it means that a simple man of the people, earning a scanty livelihood by hard toil, shall be liable to fine or imprisonment for doing that which he and his fathers before him have, up to that time, been free to do.

“If the general interest clearly requires that this burden should be put upon the fisherman—well and good. But if it does not—if, indeed, there is any doubt about the matter—I think that the man who has made the unnecessary law deserves a heavier punishment than the man who breaks it.”—Huxley, Inaugural Address, Fisheries Exhibition, 1883.

I. The Florida Sponge Fishery .—History of the Fishery. Kinds of sponges taken. Relative value of sponges. Methods of procuring sponges. Curing the sponges. Sponge grounds reduced in value through over—fishing.

Sponge Culture Experiments.—historical.

Experiments of Buccicli. —Description of apparatus used, and manner in which the experiments were conducted. Buccich concluded that sponge cuttings would grow to marketable size in seven years.

Experiments in Florida.—Sponge cuttings said to grow more rapidly, increasing to from four to six times their original size in six months, when placed under favourable conditions.

Memorandum by Mr. Benedict, of U.S. National Museum,.—Sponge culture experiments do not appear to have been tried to any great extent. Fishermen opposed to anything of the kind as likely to lead to monopoly, and the cutting off their means of subsistence.

Would Sponge—Culture By Cuttings Be Profitable—Marenzeller points out that this would depend on whether pieces of a sponge would in a given time together attain a greater weight than the original sponge would have reached if left undisturbed.

Suggested Experiments.—Suggestions by Mr. Bidder {see below). Fishing by means of divers, or dredging, should be tried in deeper water.

In considering the experiments of Buccich (6) on propagation of sponges by cuttings, two main questions present themselves:—

(1) If a sponge be divided into many fragments, will the total increase of such fragments and their progeny be greater than the increase of the intact sponge and its progeny would have been in the same time; the conditions of water, &c., being identical?

(2) Are sponges, grown as recommended by Buccich, more or less favourably situated than those on the sea-bottom?

ArtificialHatching ofFishEggs.—The Scottish Report, whose title is given above, is stated to refer to the year 1894; but as a matter of fact, a great deal of the work recorded in it was carried out during the earlier portion of 1895. This is the case with the operations of the Dunbar Hatchery, described by Mr. Harald Dannevig, the Manager of that establishment. We find that 44,085,000 eggs of plaice were collected last spring, and from these 38,615,000 fry were obtained, and liberated in the sea. This shows a loss of only 12 per cent, in the process of hatching. But large as the numbers appear, it should not be forgotten that the above number of eggs represents the produce of only 220 female fish, reckoning 200,000 eggs to each, which is a low estimate, for it has been proved by Dr. Fulton that the larger female plaice produce each from 300,000 to 500,000 eggs in one season.

>The Plaice in Danish Waters.—The Fourth Report of the Danish Biological Station consists of a lengthy paper by Dr. C. G. J. Petersen “on the Biology of our Flat-fishes and on the Decrease of our Flat-fish Fisheries,” which was awarded a prize by Det Kongelige danske Videnskabernes Selskab, and which certainly deserves the careful attention of all who are interested in fishery questions. The first chapter gives a fairly complete account of some of the main features in the life history of the plaice in the Danish seas, together with shorter notes on other flat-fishes; the second and third are occupied by a discussion of the reasons for the deterioration of the fisheries, and of the remedial measures by which this evil may in the future be prevented. The paper is supplemented by five appendices, one of which, on the post-larval stages of flat-fishes, is of particular interest. For the full English translation with which we are provided English naturalists can but express their gratitude to the author.