REMARKS ON TRAWLING. oes 
alone form a remarkable feature. It is not surprising, therefore, 
that the fishing-grounds in this region still continue fairly prolific, 
notwithstanding the increased demands on their resources. In the 
same way the Moray Firth is another rich fishing-area on the East 
coast, though the rivers entering it are smaller. 
The steam-liners and trawlers frequent the more distant grounds, 
not because the fishes are absent from the nearer grounds, but 
because their “ catches,” as arule, far exceed in bulk those obtained 
on the latter. While, therefore, the present statistics show no 
serious diminution, it may be truly said that the total is kept up only 
by the supphes from Iceland, Farée, and the Great Fisher Bank. 
But the nearer grounds would have produced a considerable supply 
if they had been perseveringly worked; and it cannot be doubted 
that they contained, at any rate, an immense number of small 
haddocks.* Moreover, these small haddocks had migrated from 
the distant waters, for it isa remarkable fact that, so far as ascer- 
tained, no great shoals of very small haddocks (¢.e. less than 
3 inches) have been encountered in inshore waters. The life- 
history of the haddock, indeed, between its post-larval condition and 
the adolescent stage of between 2 and 38 inches, is still com- 
paratively unknown. Before the appearance of these hordes of 
small haddocks, it was generally asserted that the haddock had 
been more or less extirpated ; hence the necessity for caution in 
dealing with such subjects. Again the question as to the complete- 
ness of the statistics of fishes caught round the Scottish shores has 
to be considered, and there are some who think much improvement 
is required in this direction. Indeed, the only satisfactory method 
would be for every liner, trawler, net-, crab-, or other fisherman to 
hand to the official on reaching the port a slip stating the amount 
and kind of the “ catch,” and the ground on which it was made, as 
indicated in the Trawling Report of 1884. Taking all these cireum- 
stances into consideration, therefore, there is no reason for despairing 
of the fisheries, especially when the enormous powers of reproduction 
of the round and flat-fishes, their transparent, floating eggs, and 
the vastness of the medium which encircles our shores are remem- 
bered, 
The condition of the inshore waters (within the 3-mile limit) has 
elsewhere been dealt with,+ and will again form the subject of future 
remarks. All that need be said at present is that, so far as can be 
ascertained, it would not appear that the closure of the inshore waters 
* An idea of the numbers of these may be given by stating that a trawler brought on 
board, in two hauls, about ten tons of small haddocks, which were, however, freed. Many 
were probably killed. 
t+ A Brief Sketch of the Scottish Fisheries, 1882-92, p. 6. 
