of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 

 The Method of Fishing. 



79 



It is also necessary that the method of fishing by which the fish are 

 caught should be distinguished, and the quantities taken by each method 

 separately recorded as at Aberdeen. The j)rincipal modes by which bottom 

 fishes, that is to say white fish, are taken are trawling, great-lining and 

 small-lining. In some places there are subsidiary methods as gill-nets or 

 " trammels " (especially for cod and turbot and skates) and fixed (trap) 

 nets, but their contribution to the total is extremely small. Seine-net 

 fishing for flat-fishes is not allowed in Scotland. 



An important reason why it is necessary to separately distinguish the 

 product of each mode of fishing is that not only the quantities but the 

 proportions of the different kinds of fish taken by each mode varies con- 

 siderably. The catches, for example, of trawlers and liners differ to a 

 large extent. In the following Table I have given the percentages of the 

 different kinds offish caught (1) by a steam-trawler in the course of a 

 whole year, the total being 5138 cwts. ; (2) by the steam-liners landing 

 fish at- Aberdeen in the month of March, making 157 landings, the total 

 quantity being 15,725 cwts ; (3) by 424 landings of small-line boats at 

 Aberdeen in April, the total quantity being 1005 cwts. : — 



Rather more than half the total quantity caught by the beam-trawler 

 and the small-liners was composed of haddocks, while the steam-liners, as 

 one would expect, caught only a fractioual quantity of this fish, the bulk 

 of their catches being composed of skates, ling, and cod. The small-liners 

 caught chiefly haddocks, whiting, and codling. The basis of comparison 

 in the three cases is not, however, strictly the same throughout, and the 

 figures cannot be taken as shoAving accurately the relative proportions for 

 the whole year. The proportions caught by the steam-liners, for example, 

 vary considerably according to the ground on which they fish — cod in 

 some places forming the bulk of the catches, in other places skates, and in 

 others, as at the Faroes, halibut. But the figures suffice to show how 

 different the general proportions are in these methods of fishing. 



The bearing of the facts when dealing with the aggregate statistics of 

 the fishes landed is obvious. Even if the other factors were ascertained, 

 and the number of boats fishing and the number of voyages, the informa- 

 tion would be of little value in comparing the returns from year to year, 

 unless it were shown that the relative proportion or ratio of one mode of 

 fishing to the other had remained constant. A decrease or increase of the 



