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Preliminary Note on Trawling Experiments in certain 

 Bays on the South Coast of Devon. 



By 



F. B. Stead, B.A,, Scholar of King's College, Cambridge, 

 Assistant Naturalist on the Staff of the Marine Biological Association. 



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. 



The expectations with which the work was begun were twofold. It 

 was hoped that by carrying out systematic experiments at fairly regular 

 intervals, in certain well-defined areas within territorial limits, the 

 characters of the populations of fishes of different species inhabiting 

 these areas might be ascertained ; and, further, that by selecting, for the 

 purposes of the investigation, certain bays at present closed to trawlers, 

 in accordance with a bye-law of the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee, 

 the effects of a discontinuance of trawling within these areas might be 

 experimentally tested. 



This last expectation has, however, been disappointed, owing to the 

 frequent infringement of the bye-law in question.* 



The scientific issues of an investigation of this kind will become 

 clearer as time goes on : its practical bearings were sufllciently obvious 

 at the outset. For clearly it will afford evidence of a valuable kind in 

 connection with any question that may be raised as to the advisability, 

 or otherwise, of closing the bays investigated. 



Investigations of a somewhat similar nature have already been 

 carried out by the scientific staff of the Scotch Fishery Board for the 

 east coast of Scotland, and by Holt for the west coast of Ireland. A 



* To what extent such illegal fishing has gone on, I am not in the position to say. But 

 that it would be impossible to draw scientific conclusions as to the effect of closing the 

 bays when the bays have not, in fact, been closed, is suflficiently obvious. 



