74 Part III. — Twentieth Annual Report 



some cases no record was made of the hauls brought on board during 

 night. In order to bring the catches made on these trips in the territorial 

 waters into relation with those from the usual trawling grounds, I have 

 also given the gross quantities of the marketable fishes in cwts. as well as 

 the values. As on previous occasions, I receive:! much assistance in this 

 work from Mr. H. Dannevig and also from Mr. P. Jamieson. The hauls 

 made in May in the deep water off the Shetlands were all recorded by Mr. 

 H. Dannevig. 



Besides the investigations made on board trawlers, I have been able to 

 obtain detailed statistics of the quantities of fish landed at Aberdeen by 

 a considerable number of other trawlers, and these are also dealt with 

 in this paper. They are of two kinds. The first series shows the quan- 

 tities landed each trip by six steam trawlers over a period of years ; in 

 two instances the period comprises sixteen years, from 1885 to 1900 

 inclusive, and in the other four cases it comprises ten years, from 1890 to 

 1 900. The period is thus considerable, and the information they furnish 

 as to the quantities of fish caught in the various successive years is of 

 interest. They are, however, defective in one important particular, inas- 

 much as they do not show the places where the fish were taken, a defect 

 common to most fishery statistics, and thus conclusions drawn from them 

 as to change in the abundance of bottom fishes are uncertain. The fish, and 

 especially the flat-fish, on different grounds vary greatly in kind and in rela- 

 tive proportion to one another. Plaice, for example, is the most abundant 

 marketable flat-fish in the bays and inshore waters on the East Coast, while 

 it is extremely scarce in the deep water at a distance from shore. On the 

 other hand, witches and megrims are absent from the shallow inshore 

 waters and are abundant in the deep water, where they form the greater 

 proportion of the marketable flat-fishes. Thus, twenty-three hauls, 

 occupying 102 hours actual trawling, in 65 fathoms, about 35 miles from 

 the Hhetlands, yielded 193 plaice, 1352 witches, and 782 megrims, while 

 five hauls occupying 9J hours, in Aberdeen Bay, by the same vessel, 

 immediately after the deep-water hauls referred to, yielded 1097 plaice, 

 no witches, and no megrims. At a somewhat greater distance from the 

 Shetlands plaice are practically absent. 



The statistics of the six trawlers mentioned above show a great decrease 

 in the quantitly of plaice caught by them in the later years of the period ; 

 but they show at the same time a great increase in the quantity of witches 

 and megrims, which indicates that the grounds fished over were not the 

 same in the earlier and later years. The records of two of the vessels go 

 back, indeed, to a period when the whole of the territorial waters in Scot- 

 land were still open to trawlers, and the others to a time when the 

 greater part of the Moray Firth was likewise open to them ; there is no 

 doubt that they often fished then in the areas now closed, and that this 

 accounts to a great extent for the diminution in the catch of plaice. But 

 it is impossible to say how much of the decrease is due to diminished 

 abundance of this fish on the old grounds and how much to the transfer- 

 ence of the fishing to new grounds, where it is naturally scarce. 



The other series of statistics was devised with the object of remedying this 

 defect by ascertaining and recording the place where the fish were caught. 

 For this purpose a considerable number of steam trawlers were selected, 

 fishing, like the others, from the port of Aberdeen and lauding their fish 

 there, and a note of the place of fishing was furnished by the skipper to 

 the statistical clerk (Mr. J. Eobb), who also recorded, in the usual 

 manner, the quantities of fish landed. Obviously the trustworthiness of 

 this information depends upon the good faith of the skipper — and the 

 most reliable men were chosen — and in the great majority of cases there was 

 no motive for giving misleading information and no reason to suppose 



