10 



Part III. — Ttventy- fifth Annual Report 



The exteut of the annual fluctuations has been considerable. 

 The average annual yield in crans in the various districts and in the 

 Clyde as a whole in ten-year periods is shown as follows : — 



* Includes figures for Ballautrae which, until 1863, was part of Greenock District. 



With regard to the fishing in Loch Fyne the tables and plates 

 show that the good years and the bad years come in groups, and 

 that only on one occasion, 1897, a very good year followed a year 

 in which the catch was below the average. They also show that 

 the recent period of poor fishing was almost exactly paralleled 

 about thirty-two years ago (1872-1874), when a slightly lower point 

 was reached, the curve of fluctuations being closely similar in the two 

 periods. 



Tables are also appended to the report showing that the fluctua- 

 tions from year to year in Loch Fyne are not greater than they are 

 in other areas on the East and West Coasts, where the mean annual 

 yield is about the same. 



The Food-Value of the Herking. 



In continuation of his research on the food-value of the Loch 

 Fyne and West Coast herring, the results of which were published 

 in last year's Report, Professor Milroy, of Queen's College, Belfast, 

 contributes to the present Report a paper on the food-value of the 

 East Coast autumn lierring. The fish were obtained at Shetland 

 and Fraserburgh, and comprised specimens of the classes known 

 commercially as matties, fulls, large fulls, and spents. The compo- 

 sition of the herring- muscle or flesli is stated in percentages of 

 water, total proteids, coagulal)le proteids, and fat ; the coagulable 

 proteids represent the proteids which are coagulated on boiling the 

 fish, and are important as an indication of the nutritive value. 

 The percentage amount of fat in the fish is in many respects the 

 most valuable indication of the food-value of the herring, but it 

 must not be regarded as the sole one. The herrings richest in fats 

 were the matties and the mattie-fulls — fish in which the repro- 

 ductive organs were but little developed — while the lowest 

 percentages were found in large spent herrings and large fulls. In 

 spent fish the proportion of fat varied from 6*1 5 per cent, to 9 '3 2 

 per cent. ; in fulls (in which the reproductive organs are almost or 

 quite developed) the percentage varied from 7'53 to 12'44; in 



