Two Reports on Marine Investigations 1

Abstract

THE staff responsible for scientific investigations and administration of fisheries under the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland is attacking its problems with insight and energy, and is laying up a store of information of permanent value and interest. It is somewhat startling at this stage to note that Mr. Holt finds it necessary in his report on international investigations to expound the wherefore of hydrographical and plankton investigations and their bearing upon practical fishery problems. He states the case clearly and well, pointing out the necessity of studying the variations in the “annual ocean tide,” of investigating the relation between salinity and plankton distribution, and of determining how far plankton conditions the abundance or absence of pelagic fishes, and hence may be taken as a guide in practical fishery pursuits. The ultimate end is the foretelling of physical conditions—favourable or unfavourable—from knowledge of prior causative factors, and thus preventing blindly tentative and unremunerative fishing operations. This research is of primary importance to Ireland, the staple fisheries of which are for the pelagic and plankton-eating mackerel and herring. The report further deals with the trawling survey of the deep-water grounds off the southwest coast, with mackerel and herring fisheries, oyster and other bivalve fisheries, and their artificial culture by the Department.