390 



NATURE 



[August 25, 1892 



extent, and were merely incidental to certain questions pro- 

 minent for the time being. The absence of definite scientific 

 knowledge relating to the fisheries had been felt and commented 

 upon by Royal Commissions appointed to enquire into fishing 

 questions ; and when the new Board came mto existence in 

 1882, it was found that, without further information as to the 

 habits and life-history of the food-fishes, it would be impossible 

 to submit satisfactory reports to Parliament either as to the im- 

 provement or the regulation of the fisheries. It was accordingly 

 resolved that scientific investigations should be instituted under 

 a committee, consisting of Prof. Ewart (Convener), Sir James 

 Maitland, Sheriff Forbes Irvine, and Mr. Maxtone Graham. 

 This committee acted until 1886, when it was dissolved ; and, 

 in 1887, another committee was formed, consisting of Prof 

 Ewart (Convener), Sir James Maitland, Mr. William Boyd, and 

 Mr. W. Anderson Smith, which continued till 1889. Since the 

 dissolution of this committee the scientific work has been under 

 the immediate control of the Board, with Dr. T. Wemyss 

 Fulton as scientific secretary, but all the members feel, and de- 

 sire specially to acknowledge, the valuable assistance which has 

 been rendered by Sir James Maitland and Mr. Anderson Smith. 



Before describing the investigations undertaken, a word must 

 be said as to the means which have been at the disposal of the 

 Board. In 1884 a marine laboratory was established at St. 

 Andrews, with the co-operation of Prof. Mcintosh, F.R. S., who 

 was at the time engaged in making scientific investigations for 

 the Royal Commission on Beam-Trawling, under the late Lord 

 Dalhousie ; and this laboratory has continued inactive operation 

 ever since under Prof. Mcintosh's charge. In 1885 another 

 laboratory was erected at Tarbert, Lochfyne, which was placed 

 under the charge of Mr. George Brook, F.L.S., and was occu- 

 pied until 1887. During 1886-87 a portion of Rothesay 

 Aquarium was made use of, and from 1884 until 1889 part of 

 the scientific work was carried on at the Natural History De- 

 partment of the University of Edinburgh, under the charge of 

 Prof Ewart. Subsequently a marine laboratory was built at 

 Dunbar, which has since been added to, and in connection with 

 which the Board are now erecting a large hatchery for the 

 propagation of sea-fish. In addition to the laboratories 

 mentioned, the fishery cruisers have occasionally been engaged 

 in aiding the scientific inquiries, as have al<o the staff of Fishery 

 Officers around the coast. Since 1886 the small steam-vessel 

 6'3;-/aW, although not at all sufficient for the work, -has also 

 rendered important services. 



At the time when the scientific investigations were begun very 

 little was known regarding the habits of sea-fishes. Fishermen, 

 who presumably ought to know something of the life-history of 

 the fishes they catch, knew, as Prof Huxley has remarked, very 

 little beyond the best way to catch them. Yet from the earliest 

 period until comparatively lately, the practice has been to shape 

 fishery legislation in accordance with local desires or the popular 

 opinion prevailing at the time, and not upon ascertained con- 

 ditions. A study of the statutes dealing with sea fisheries, es- 

 pecially those passed by Parliament from the middle of last 

 century to about the middle of this, shows that vast sums of 

 money have been expended uselessly, and injurious restrictions 

 imposed for reasons which scientific investigations have now 

 proved were illusory. About thirty years ago, however, an im- 

 portant change in this system was effected. Van Beneden on 

 the continent, and Prof Huxley, Mr. Spencer Walpole, Mr. 

 Shaw Lefevre, and others in this country made a stand against 

 haphazard regulations, and in Great Britain their action found 

 practical expression in the liberating Act of 1868 (31 and 32 

 Vict. c. 45), which repealed or amended sixty-four fishery 

 statutes, and restored liberty of fishing. The Royal Commis- 

 sioners who brought about this reform (the late Sir James Caird, 

 Prof. Huxley, and Mr. Shaw Lefevre) refer in their report to 

 the absence of knowledge about the habits of sea fishes, their 

 reproduction, spawning-places, and conditions of existence 

 which is essential to effective regulation of the fisheries. 



An indication of the lack of accurate knowledge on these sub- 

 jects as lately as 1883 was afforded at the London International 

 Fishery Exhibition in 1883, when a high authority thus described 

 the condition of things at that time : " It is a very striking fact 

 that the one point on which all speakers at the conferences held 

 during the past summer at the Exhibition were agreed was this — 

 that our knowledge of the habits, time and place of spawning, 

 food, peculiarities of the young, migrations, &c., of the fish 

 which form the basis of British fisheries, is lamentably deficient, 

 and that without further knowledge any legislation or attempts 



NO. 



91, VOL. 46] 



to improve our fisheries by better modes of fishing, or by pro- 

 tection or culture, must be dangerous, and indeed unreason- 

 able." 



It is a source of satisfaction to the Board that their labours in 

 this field of fishery work, even for the comparatively short time 

 over which they have extended, have yielded successful results, 

 and have contributed materially to the advancement of that 

 knowledge of fishery problems, the want of which was felt and 

 deplored by the Royal Commissioners of 1866. The scientific 

 work carried on by the Board, the chief results of which have 

 been described from year to year in their annual report to Par- 

 liament, may be summarized briefly as follows : — 



(i) Inquiries into the influence of beam-trawling on the fish 

 supply, especially within the territorial waters ; the capture and 

 destruction of immature fish by various modes of fishing ; the 

 condition of the inshore fisheries for shell-fish and the supplies 

 of mussels and other bait for line fishermen ; surveys and exam ■ 

 ination of the fishing grounds, &c. 



(2) Investigations into the food, fecundity, reproduction, 

 halDits and migrations of the food fishes, the location of their 

 spawning-grounds, and of the nurseries of young fish, the time 

 and duration of spawning, «&:c. 



(3) The study of pelagic and demersal ova, and of the develop- 

 ment of the food-fishes and edible molluscs from the egg on- 

 wards. 



(4) Inquiries into the micro-organisms in river waters, and 

 associated with salmon disease, and into the food of fishes in 

 inland waters. 



(5) Observations on the temperature, salinity, and physical 

 conditions of the sea around the coast. 



(6) The artificial propagation of sea-fish and shell-fish to 

 re-stock depleted grounds. 



The investigations into the influence of beam trawling, which 

 have been carried on with great regularity and care, have fur- 

 nished a mass of scientific and statistical evidence unexampled 

 in the history of any fishery, and have been followed by the 

 prohibition of this mode of fishing within the territorial seas. 

 As stated in former reports, various portions of the inshore 

 grounds were for experimental purposes closed against beam- 

 trawling, and by the Herring Fishery (Scotland) Act of 1889, 

 the territorial waters were included in the prohibition, certain 

 powers being reserved to the Fishery Board. Closely related 

 to beam-trawling is the capture and destruction of immature 

 fish, which is generally regarded as the most important of the 

 fishery problems awaiting solution in the immediate future. In 

 certain foreign States and English fishery districts the landing or 

 sale of immature fish under certain sizes has already been made 

 penal ; and in 1890 an International Fishery Conference was 

 specially convened in London to consider this subject so far as 

 it affected the diminution of the fish supply from the North 

 Sea. Extensive observations have been made by the Board as 

 to the distribution of immature fish on the east coast of Scotland 

 at various distances from shore and in water of different depths ; 

 the minimum size at maturity of the different species and the 

 proportions captured by various modes of fishing, with especial 

 reference to the mesh of trawl-nets, have been ascertained, as 

 has also the action of the beam-trawl in destroying immature 

 fish according to the time the net is down and the nature of the 

 bottom. The results were embodied in a report which was 

 prepared by Dr. Fulton, under directions of the Board, and was 

 described (we believe with perfect accuracy) by the vice-president 

 at the Conference " as one of the most important, if not the 

 most important, document that had up to the present been con- 

 tributed to the Fishery literature of this country." 



The inquiries into the food and propagation of the edible 

 fishes have been also prosecuted on an extensive scale. The 

 food-material of nearly 20,000 specimens caught at various parts 

 of the coast and at all seasons of the year has been examined, 

 and this research has yielded valuable results both in regard to 

 the protection and regulation of the fisheries and the increase of 

 the fish supply by artificial means. The fecundity of nearly all 

 the food-fishes has been determined, the nature of pelagic and 

 demersal ova has been carefully studied, and the distribution 

 of the former in the waters over the breeding grounds and along 

 the coasts investigated. The development from the egg on- 

 wards, and the characteristics of the young of the majority of 

 the edible fishes have been described — including the herring, 

 haddock, whiting, cod, ling, turbot, plaice, lemon sole, flounder, 

 &c., and also of the most valuable forms of bait, the mussel and 

 the clam. The spawning of the herring and of the other food- 



