of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 27 
The vessel then proceeded to the Dornoch Firth, where three hauls 
were made. One of these was not recorded, and the first of the others 
was a small-meshed drag, which lasted for one hour and was made in from 
6 to 10 fathoms, a moderate breeze blowing from the W.S.W. with 
rain, and the sea being smooth. In the cod-end there were 396 fishes, 
284 of which were marketable and 112 unmarketable. Most of the 
catch consisted of plaice, but there were also 57 large and medium had- 
docks, a cod, and a few dabs. The contents of the small-meshed net 
were as follows :— rf 
Codling, - - - 26 | Long Rough Dab, - 1 
Whiting, - - - 408 | Plaice, - = 2-0 
Common Dab, - - 127 | Herring, - _ es bTS 
Witch, + - - 1 | Sprat, : : Sah 
The second drag, in about 8 fathoms for four hours, gave 1650 
fishes, of which 1594 were marketable. The catch included 1252 plaice, 
5 cod, 348 haddocks, a halibut, and 2 turbot. The two drags, 
representing five hours’ fishing, yielded 2046 fishes, (878 being market- 
able. In this total the plaice numbered 1481 and the haddocks 409, 
The marketable and unmarketable fishes are as follows :— 
| Coa, | Cod- | Had- | Whit-) Coal- | Hali- | Tur- Eee ‘Lemon | Com. | Thorn- 
* | ling. | dock.| ing. | fish. | but. | bot. | ~~ ~~|} Dab. | Dab. | back. 
i. 6 7 | 389 : ii 1 Zit lea fala wr 12 
Il 10 20 31 24 80 3 
Total 6 17 | 409 31 1 1 2 | 1,481 3 92 3 
Both among the haddocks and the plaice the proportion of the small 
fishes was inconsiderable compared with some other hauls. The numbers 
of the different classes were as follows :— 
Ist 2nd std 4th Unmarketable Total. 
Haddock, 223 166 == — 20 409 
Plaice, 4 AAG ates a0 24 1481 
Before leaving the Firth some further hauls were made in Burghead 
Bay on the 26th. In the first of these, in from 6 to 19 fathoms 
and for four hours and a half, the number of fishes caught was 1017, 
922 being marketable. Haddocks were sparingly represented, the bulk 
of the catch consisting of plaice—857—and 2 turbot, 17 brill, 
and 2 witches were also included in the total. In the next haul, in 
16 to 20 fathoms, for four hours and twenty minutes, 1013 fishes 
were taken, 909 being marketable; they consisted mostly of plaice. 
The third haul was not completely recorded ; it included nine baskets of 
plaice. 
In the ten hauls made in Burghead Bay during this trip, the duration 
of actual fishing being being forty hours and five minutes, the total 
number of fishes obtained was 11,487, or an average of 2865°6 per ten 
hours’ fishing the marketable numbered 10,038, the average per ten 
hours being 2504'4, and the unmarketable amounted to 1449, the 
