306 BRITISH FISHERIES 



ascertained. Its utility as a means of benefiting 

 the sea-fisheries depends on the extent to which 

 it is likely to increase the abundance of the fishes 

 propagated. There is at present no means of 

 judging what proportion of the fry distributed 

 on the fishing grounds survive to a marketable 

 size ; and it has been thought desirable, as the 

 most likely way to discover this, to place the 

 fry in one or more selected lochs on the west 

 coast, which are to a large extent shut off from 

 free communication with the open sea, and care- 

 fully to watch the results on the abundance of the 

 same species within its waters. Accordingly, the 

 fry are now, for the most part, being transported 

 in special apparatus by rail to the west coast, 

 and distributed in confined lochs." l Upper Loch 

 Fyne was selected as the most suitable place to 

 experiment in, and from 1893 practically all the 

 fry produced at the Dunbar hatchery, and at the 

 station at the Bay of Nigg, Aberdeen, to which 

 the whole work was removed in 1899, ^ ave been 

 carried across the country and planted in that 

 loch. Investigations were also made to show, 

 for the year 1898, what was the condition of 

 Upper Loch Fyne as regards the abundance of 

 pelagic fish eggs. 



The numbers of eggs of sea-fish hatched at 

 the Scottish Fishery Board stations so far have 

 been, up to the year 1903 : 



1 Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland for 1895, P*- "i- P- IO - 



