of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 51 
numbers of the fish were as follows, the marketable being represented 
on the first line (I.) and the unmarketable on the second line (II.) :— 
Long ‘ | a ce f 
Rlniea! Com. | Tur- Roughi| Cod. Cod- | Had- | Whit-| Gur- |Starry/Thorn Total. 
Dab. Dab 
bot. ling. | dock. | ing. | nard.| Ray. | back. 
I, | 52 93 1 1 12 668 | 60 887 
Th) 47 | 379 33 101} 15 32 7 9 623 
The plaice consisted of nineteen large, eight medium, and twenty-five 
small but marketable, and forty-seven too small to be marketable, due 
to the fishing in the very shallow water. There were only three large 
haddocks, and 665 small but marketable, besides 101 too small to be 
marketable. 
The second haul was made in the same place, the net being shot in 
seventeen fathoms and worked into six and ten and fifteen fathoms, 
and it lasted five hours and fifteen minutes, or five minutes less than 
the previous haul. The marketable catch in this instance consisted of 
ten-and-a-half baskets of haddocks, four-and-a-half baskets of plaice, 
one-and-a-quarter basket of whitings, one of dabs, and a quarter of a 
basket of codlings, as well as eight cod. It was thus very much larger. 
All the fish were enumerated, except the codlings. The number, 
excluding the codlings, was 3300, of which 2968 were marketable and 
332 unmarketable. Allowing twenty codlings for the quarter-basket, 
the total of marketable would be increased to 2988 fishes. 
The details are as follows :— 
S . e 
8 |8s\ 85 |Pmeslg | £ | oe leelad| Pal ee] s < 
Si [se s os 9 | 4 w H| Bs o | a $ 
a \ga| 84 Sealc| 8 las les os) sees) 2 2S 
cS 5 et 
I 310} 5] 168 8 | [20 2] | 2,316 | 161 2,968 
II 62| 2] 162} 31 37 9 3 13 6 7 | 332 
372 | 7} 330] 31 8 | [20 ?]| 2,358 | 170 3 13 6 7 3,800 
All the fishes, except the long rough dabs and the gurnards, were in 
greater numbers than in the preceding haul with the beam-trawl. 
Little can be deduced from a single drag with each net as in this 
experiment, but as it is, so far as I am aware, the only one of the kind yet 
made, it may be worth while to discuss the results. The number of flat- 
fishes taken with the beam-trawl was 605, or 40°0 per cent. of the total 
catch ; with the otter-net the number was 740, or an excess of 135, but 
the percentage was only about half, viz. 224 per cent. If the skates and 
rays be included—and they are equally characteristic bottom fishes 
—the number in the case of the beam-trawl becomes 621 and the 
percentage 41°1, and in the case of the otter-trawl the number is 759 
and the percentage 23. The deduction from these figures, considered 
alone, is that the otter-net is more efficient than the beam-trawl in 
catching flat-fishes in the proportion of 1:22 to 1, or 22 per cent.— 
in other words, that the spread of the net in fishing is that percentage 
