10 Fart III. — Twenty-seventh Anmrnl Report 



The statistics for the Loch Fyne fishery go back to the j'-ear 1854, 

 and only in one year in that period was the quantity of herrings 

 taken less than it was in 1907, namely, in 1873, when 3,648 crans 

 were landed. At that period there was a similar depression, but it 

 did not last so long, there being only three years — 1872-1874 — when 

 the quantity was less than 10,000 crans, as compared with the six 

 years, as shown above, in the present period. In 1908 there were 

 indications that herrings were fairl}'- plentiful in the lower reaches of 

 the loch, but they invariably remained in deep water, where they 

 could not be caught, but in the last week of June there was a move- 

 ment which resulted in a large catch. 



As mentioned in former reports, periodic observations on the 

 abundance of the plankton, or minute floating life in the sea, upon 

 which the herrings principally subsist, and upon the temperature of 

 the water, have been made in Loch Fyne, and these observations are 

 being continued. A preliminary report, by Dr. Thomas Scott, on the 

 distribution of the pelagic Crustacea in Loch Fyne will be found in 

 the present Eeport, the tow-net collections made in the years 1905- 

 1908, some 600 in number, being dealt with. The variations at the 

 six stations where the collections were made are shown in each of the 

 years, and the organisms present are described. It is proposed to 

 carry on these investigations and observations in the loch until the 

 herrings have returned to it in something like their former 

 abundance. Since they were begun at the end of 1904, after the 

 decline in the herring fishery had set in, it is obviously necessary to 

 continue them until the herring shoals return again, and until a 

 sufficient body of information has been obtained to make it possible 

 to decide whether any special change in the physical conditions of the 

 waters of the loch, or in the abundance of the organisms upon which 

 the herrings feed, was characteristic of the period of depression in 

 the herring fishery. 



The Herrings of the Clyde and other Districts. 



Since 1905 samples of the herrings taken in the Clyde and at some 

 other parts of the coast have been sent to the marine laboratory, 

 with the view more particularly of determining certain points in 

 their reproduction and spawning, and a paper on the subject, by Dr. 

 H. C. Williamson, is contained in this Eeport. Over 156 samples of 

 herrings were examined during the years in question, their length 

 and, in most cases, their weights determined, as well as the state of 

 development of the reproductive organ and the size of the eggs 

 contained in the ovaries. The particulars are set forth in copious 

 lists, the immature lierrings being distinguished from the spawners 

 and the spent, and as far as possiljle the summer-spawners from ths 



