of the, Fishery Board for Scotland. 



125 



The greatest increases, it will be obsei'veci, took place among the 

 larger and predaceous kinds of fish, cod, saithe, hake, and whitings, 

 while the increase in haddocks, which was by far the most abundant 

 fish, was considerably less. The substitution of a comparatively slender, 

 inconspicuous headline in the otter-trawl for the thick beam of the 

 beam-trawl is no doubt responsible to some extent for the greater 

 captures of cod, saithe, and hake, even if the headline of the latter were 

 in a horizontal phxne with the top of the boards, i.e., about the same 

 height as the beam in the beam-trawl. But the increase is too great to 

 be explained in this way alone, and it does not, moreover, explain the 

 much larger percentage increase in whitings compared with haddocks, 

 although the latter are larger fishes. The fishes named — cod, saithe, 

 hake, and whiting — are predaceous, and are not so strictly confined to 

 the bottom as the more purely bottom-feeding haddock. They roam 

 about above the bottom, and are not infrequently caught in herring drift 

 or seine-nets, and their capture in relatively greater numbers by the otter- 

 trawl lends support to the view that the headline in this net rises 

 towards the centre and foi'ms more or less of an arch. Here again, 

 however, one is met with the difficulty as to the place of fishing in the 

 years compared. The increase in cod — which may be as abundant near 

 shore as in the deep water — is moderate compared with the increase in 

 hake and saithe, which are more abundant in the latter region. 



Among flatfishes, turbot wei«e caught by the otter-trawl in greater 

 numbers than by the beam-trawl by three vessels and in less numbers 

 by two, the total by the beam -trawl for the year being 185 cwts., and 

 by the otter 188|, an increase of about 1| per cent. The quantity of 

 halibut was small, viz., 83g cwts. by the beam-trawl and 76g cwts. by 

 the otter-trawl, showing thus a decrease. Brill also declined from 44| 

 cwts. by the beam-trawl to 19g cwts. by the otter-tiuwl, while dabs 

 increased from 94 cwts. to 103|; the selection of this fish for the 

 market is, however, arbitrary and imperfect. The particulars for lemon 

 soles, plaice, witches, and megrims for the two yearly periods are as 

 follow : — 



Lemon soles thus diminished by 26 per cent., plaice by 13"2 per cent., 

 witches by 4*9 per cent., while there was an increase in the catch of 

 megrims to the extent of 44 per cent. The variations in these per- 

 centages shows at once that we are dealing with diflerent grounds in 

 the two cases, unless it were to be maintained that it indicates an 

 actual diminution of lemon soles, plaice, and witches on the grounds 

 and an increase in the numbers of megrims. 



