420 Bibliographical Notice. 



Measurements in millimetres. — Total length 48 ; length of 

 carapace 5, of tail 27. 



Loc. Tangs, in Bechuanaland. 



A single female sent to the British Museum by Mr. H. A. 

 Spencer. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



The Resources of the Sea ; as shown in Scientific Experiments to test 

 the effects of Trawling and of the closure of certain Areas off the 

 Scottish Shores. By W. C. M'Intosh, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., &c, 

 Professor of Natural History in the University of St. Andrews, 

 Director of the Museum and of the Catty Marine Laboratory. 

 8vo, London, 1899. Pp. xvi, 248. Frontispiece, 16 plates, and 

 8 woodcuts ; with Appendix of 32 Statistical Tables. 



In this volume Professor M'Intosh has accomplished a laborious but 

 certainly invidious task. Critically examining a complicated mass 

 of statistics published by the Fishery Board for Scotland in their 

 Annual Reports, mainly pertaining to the influence of beam-trawling, 

 he descants on the material in a broad light. The subject at issue 

 resolves itself into somewhat as follows : — Has the twelve-years 

 abolition of trawling in extensive fishing-grounds in Scotland been 

 as productive of benefit to the fisheries as was anticipated when the 

 bye-law was enforced, April 1886? If not, wherefore continue it? 

 To the first query Prof. M'Intosh gives a distinctly negative reply. 

 To the second, in substance, he strenuously submits that abolition of 

 the restriction to trawling may safely be adopted. 



The Fishery Board officially recognizes * that closure of the Firth 

 of Forth, St. Andrews Bay, and Aberdeen Bay have proved failures 

 in so far as respects increase of fishes in those areas. Notwith- 

 standing, there has been no relaxation of their bye-laws affecting 

 the said inshore waters, though this course might be deemed in 

 consonance with their own conclusions. Furthermore, they shift 

 the basis of their previous argument of the trawlers' destruction of 

 brood inshore to action on presumed but hitherto imperfectly known 

 spawning-grounds offshore in the Moray Firth (and Firth of Clyde). 

 These more recent investigations comprise several areas beyond the 

 three-mile limit, e. g. Smith Bank &c. 



Meantime a considerable section of the fishing community and 

 those commercially interested naturally feel aggrieved t, and it 

 appears as if trawlers and liners are equally dissatisfied with the 



* See 14th Ann. Rep. of the Fishery Board for Scotland for 1895 

 (1896) : Conclusions, p. 12. 



t Witness the discussion and resolution re " Fishing in the Moray 

 Firth," Proceedings National Sea-Fisheries Protection Association, Con- 

 ference 1898. 



