476 SOME RESULTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FISHERY INVESTIGATIONS. 



the steam trawlers, aud a number of the sailing trawlers landing 

 catches at Aberdeen furnish voluntary returns as to the places where 

 they have been fishing, the number of hours fishing, the number of hauls 

 of the trawl and number of lines shot. The quantities of fish landed 

 by these vessels at Aberdeen, with respect to the market grouping in 

 sizes, are obtained by the officers of the Fishery Board. The figures so 

 obtained are collected and discussed by the statistical clerks and others 

 on the staff of the Scottish section of the International organization. 

 No details of individual catches are published, only abstracts, and the 

 statistics themselves are made public long after the actual fishing has 

 taken place. There can be no commercial use made of the information 

 given by the masters of the vessels by their rivals in trade : an important 

 consideration, since the information is voluntary and can be withheld.* 



In dealing with the figures of fish captured by the Aberdeen fieets, 

 Fulton refers the catches to the areas in the North Sea in which they 

 were made. For this purpose the North Sea north of parallel 50° N. 

 and E. of meridian 6° W. is divided up into forty- eight squares, 

 each of which corresponds to one degree in latitude and two in longitude. 

 When a vessel returns to port, her master informs the collectors of 

 statistics wliat course he has steered on his voyage out from port, where 

 he has fished, aud the number of hours trawling on each ground or the 

 number of lines shot (if he is a liner). The results of the voyage, when 

 tabulated by the statistical clerks, show for the trawling fleet during 

 January (for instance) the average quantities of each kind of fish taken 

 per 100 hours trawling on each of the numbered areas, or the average 

 quantities of fish taken per 100 lines shot. 



By this method a very great mass of information has been accumu- 

 lated and published by the International organization. Fulton's paper 

 already referred to deals with the flat-fishes taken by the Aberdeen traw- 

 lers — turbot, brill, halibut, witch, megrim, lemon-dab, plaice, and dab_ 

 The abundance and fluctuations of each of these fishes on the northern 

 North Sea grounds from month to month are studied with reference to 

 particular fishing areas. The fluctuations are represented by tables and 

 charts showing graphically the variations on particular areas throughout 

 the year. Into the details of this most interesting study we cannot, of 

 course, enter ; only one or two of the main conclusions can be alluded 

 to here. A result that appears persistently throughout the discussion 



* It is therefore erroneous to state (see, for instance, tlie House of Lords debate, 25tli 

 June, 1906) that we liave by tlie publication of these figures handed over information to 

 German hsliernien whicii is made use of to our detriment. Even if these iigures could 

 suj)i)ly such information, one can liardly imagine that the German fishing industry is so 

 well organized that trawl owners or fishing-lioat masters study English scientific 

 journals ; any more than that English or Scotch owners or masters study, for instance, the 

 German Milthcilungen dcs Dcutschen See-Fischcrci Verein ; or that state hshery intel- 

 ligence departments exist in either country which study this information and supply it 

 to the fishing industry. 



