[ 36G ] 



Recent Reports of Fishery Authorities. 



The Scottish Report for 1895. 



Fourteenth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for 



the year 1895. Edinburgh, 1896. 



The Effect of the Closure of Inshore Areas upon the Size and 

 Abundance of the Food -Fishes which they contain. — In the 

 Eeport under consideration Dr. T. Wemyss Fulton, the Scientific 

 Superintendent of the Scottish Fishery Board, publishes an important 

 Review of the Trawling Experiments of tlie Garland in the Firth 

 of Forth and St. Andrews Bay in the years 1886-1895. As is well 

 known, these areas have been closed to trawlers during the ten years 

 under consideration. The Board's steamboat Garland has from time to 

 time made experimental hauls with a 25 ft. beam-trawl along certain 

 fixed lines within the areas, the fish captured being measured and 

 recorded, and the results of the experiments published from year to 

 year in the lieports. After ten years' work, Dr. Fulton now gives 

 a general review of the whole investigation, and indicates the 

 conclusions to which, in his opinion, the results of the experiments 

 seem to point. 



The views expressed are of so much importance that we prefer 

 to sive the account of the manner in which the observations were 

 recorded, and the summary and general conclusions, in Dr. Fulton's 

 own words : — 



" In conducting the trawling experiments the aim has been, as far as 

 possible, to trawl over each station at intervals of about a month, and to 

 keep careful records of each haul, and of the conditions under which it 

 was made. The regular trawling work has been done only in the day- 

 time .... The observations at each station comprised (1) the date 

 and hour of the haul and its duration ; (2) the temperature of the air 

 and of the water at surface and bottom; (3) the density of the water at 

 surface and bottom ; (4) the transparency of the water, as indicated by 

 the depth at which an enamelled disc just ceased to be visible ; (5) the 

 direction and force of the wind, the state of the tide, the condition 

 of the weather and of the sea in regard to surface disturbance, and 



