224 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



myriads of sprats. In 1884-'85 one smack, anchored off the pier at Kin- 

 cardine, took 16 tons of garvies (or sprats) in one tide. There were 

 in all some twenty smacks lying anchored at this narrow part of the 

 Firth, bat all of these were not fishing with the small meshed nets, some 

 for herring only. Hundreds of tons were sold at from 14s. to, latterly, 

 8s. a ton, and were spread over the adjoining farm lands for manure. 

 Hundreds of tons more were sold for making up a compost manure — 

 beiug considered too rich in phosphates — to a firm in Alloa. Hundreds 

 of tons more besprinkled the mud-flats at low tide, or hung by their gills 

 in festoons along the tangle-covered timbers of the piers. The water 

 itself was alive with them, and every wave that broke on the lower piers 

 left the piers covered with glittering garvies. A man with a landing 

 net could have caught an indefinite number. 



Mr. J. T. Cunningham, of the Scottish Marine Zoological Station, 

 Grauton, in reply to inquiries, tells me that his notes dating November 

 28, show that copepods were very numerous and varied, as were also 

 molluscan larvae. The temperatures of the water, as will be seen by Mr. 

 Milne's notes in December and January, 1885, were lower than at any 

 other time of the year, being 38 and 35 near Alloa and Kincardine as 

 compared with 41 and 39 at Queensferry, and 44 and 43 at the Isle of 

 May. By the 17th of November, as it is recorded in our migration re- 

 port, garvies were reported as very abundant around the Isle of May, 

 at whicli time the temperature at that point was 49°, against 47° at 

 Queensferry and 45° at Alloa. These shoals were accompanied by 

 great numbers of gulls at the Isle of May. 



As early as March, 1884, vast numbers of gulls were reported to have 

 been fishing off North Unst, in Shetland, for many weeks together, such 

 an assembly not having been before observed by the oldest inhabitant. 



1 feel convinced that a steady and carefully recorded journal of bird 

 movements will result in very extensive additions to our knowledge of 

 the natural laws which govern them.* 



I may add that in the,course of perhaps twelve months more we hope 

 to be able to produce some certain data regarding this matter, namely, 

 the relative conditions of temperatures of the Arctic Ocean in the Spitz- 

 bergen seas in 1884-85, with the data already printed in our present 

 report, from inquiries made by Mr. A. Buchau, of the Scottish Meteor- 

 ological Society, and also the conditions of such data relating to the 

 migrations of Entomostraca and " whale's food." Also we hope to have 

 sufficient data to institute a comparison with the conditions of tempera- 

 tures, &c, in other seasons. 



Dunipace Larbert, April 7, 18S5. 



* Mr. William Evans, a most careful and excellent field naturalist, sends me records 

 of the occurrence of high arctic birds on the Firth of Forth in 1884. The gray 

 plover, knot, and bar-tailed godwit, were seen on August ( Jth, which, however, was 

 the first day Mr. Evans visited the shoro. The sanderling was seen on August 14th, 

 and the little stint on the 20th. 



