of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



41 



The first drag was made in from five to thirteen fathoms, off Golspie. 

 It lasted for four hours and five minutes, and the catch was a good one, 

 the marketable fishes numbering 2346, the unmarketable 1139, and the 

 aggregate 34:85. Plaice and haddocks formed the bulk of the catch ; of 

 the former 2166 were taken, 1264 of which were marketable and 902 

 unmarketable. Most of the plaice were of small size, only five being 

 large, 167 medium, and 1092 thirds, while the offal in this haul num- 

 bered 902. Some of these, however, were quite large enough to go to 

 market as fourths, and after this fourths were also selected. I found 

 that the sizes of the larger specimens of the "unmarketable" plaice 

 were on this occasion between nine and eleven inches : I give the 

 measurements of seventy-six of the larger ones, in centimetres and 

 inches : — 



The larger of these plaice were in reality " thirds " ; but the selection, 

 as previously mentioned, is neiver quite exact. 



The next haul, in the same locality, was for four hours and twenty-five 

 minute.s, but the fishing was chiefly conducted in from eight to ten 

 fathoms. The number of fishes taken was 1808, of which 1368 were 

 marketable and 440 unmarketable. Haddocks were much scarcer, only 

 375 being caught, and it may be said generally in regard to this fish at 

 this time in the Dornoch Firth that the quantity taken in the various 

 hauls varied very much, there being sometimes only a few and sometimes 

 over a thousand. They were obviously present, as the trawlers describe 

 it, in "spots." The plaice numbered 1237, of which 978 were market- 

 able; there were in addition thirty-two codlings, eight whitings, four 

 brill, twenty-two common dabs, and a thornback ray among the market- 

 able fishes. 



The number of fishes caught in the next haul, which lasted for four 

 hours and a half, was 2514, the marketable being 1902 and the 

 unmarketable 612. The haddocks numbered 1282, of which 271 were 

 unmarketable. There were 995 i)laice, 881 of them marketable, and in 

 addition to these the marketable Hshes included two cod, six codlings, one 

 halibut, and one megrim. The unmarketable consisted mostly of 

 haddocks, dabs, plaice, and gurnards. In the fifth drag, in from six to 

 ten fathoms, only nineteen haddocks were taken, and of these thirteen 

 were unmarketable. The plaice numbered 2101, all but 184 being 

 marketable. The next drag, for five hours, yielded 3033 fishes, 2337 

 being marketable and 696 unmarketable. There were 634 haddocks, 

 1981 plaice, 1661 marketable, 371 common dabs, six lemon dabs, and 

 seventeen brill. 



Altogether in the six hauls, involving twenty six hours and forty 

 minutes of actual fishing, 14,404 fishes were captured, the rate per hour 

 being the high one of 541-5. The marketable numbered 10,919, with an 

 average of 410-4 per hour, and the unmarketable 3485, with an hourly 

 average of 131-0. The average per hour for the plaice taken was 350-4, 

 and for those which were marketable 277"2; the average for the haddocks 



