ENG-1946 — Page 144

Chapter 12.

RESEARCH.

During the years prior to the war a good deal of research was carried out in fisheries and marine biology, in natural history and in archæology. A summary is given below with references to the more important publications in these fields.

Fisheries and Marine Biology.

Research in these subjects began in 1930. Large collec- tions of fish and other marine organisms were made and studied by experts in several countries. Many papers were published in the "Hong Kong Naturalist" on the results of this work, including more than 200 pages on the fishes of the China Seas and a similar number of pages on other marine fauna and flora. These papers provide a useful background for present and future fisheries research.

Early in 1938 Government made a small grant to the Hong Kong University which enabled the salary and expenses of Mr. S. Y. Lin, a Chinese research worker, to be met. Mr. Lin carried out a very careful and thorough survey of the marine fishing industries of Hong Kong and also of fish culture in fresh-water and brackish water ponds in the New Territories. Papers on this work and on other aspects of local marine biology were published in the first two numbers of the "Journal of the Hong Kong Fisheries Research Station", in February and September, 1940. A book on the "Common Marine Food Fishes of Hong Kong" was published and was sold out; a second enlarged edition, in which 50 species were described, appeared in March, 1940. Another book was in the press dealing with the crabs, prawns and shell-fish of the Colony but the manuscripts and proofs were lost as a result of the war. A small fisheries research staff was appointed and plans were prepared for the building by government of a Fisheries Research Station on Hong Kong Island. Research meantime continued at a temporary field station and in the Biology Department of the University. Unfortunately in the subsequent hostilities all preserved specimens, records and books were completely destroyed. 1941 the Hong Kong Government voted the sum of $220,000 to cover the cost of the building of a Fisheries Research Station, and building was commenced on a site near the village of Aberdeen in the autumn. This was interrupted by the Japanese attack on the Colony. During the months imme- diately preceding the Japanese attack research was carried out on the tanning of nets and on the extraction of oil from the livers of different local fish. This work showed that it was possible to increase greatly the efficiency of the Chinese method of tanning by a small and easily grasped modification, and, secondly, that the livers of large sharks yielded oil very

In