CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHERY. 291 



applies to inlets, bays, or near the shore. My object 

 being to get as many prime marketable fish as possible, I 

 am of course in no way interested in the prevention of 

 any particular mode of taking fish, which shall not be 

 injurious to the fisheries in general. 



" I speak from great experience, I being the owner of 

 large stations in the Island of the Lewis, in the Firth of 

 Forth, the west coast of Scotland, my principal head- 

 quarters being in Glasgow, and one way and another em- 

 ploying from 800 to 900 hands." 



It will be seen that, apparently in consequence of pro- 

 hibiting beam-trawling on the Devonshire and Cornwall 

 coasts from 1st May to 1st November, the trawlers have 

 been very successful in the other months. 



Beam-Trawling, Galway. — The fishermen here having 

 also complained of the destruction of spawn by the boats 

 trawling for flat fish, the Irish Commissioners also pro- 

 hibited trawling in Galway Bay, when large shoals of 

 herrings or mackerel shall have set in to said bay ; and the 

 fishermen are engaged fishing for such fish with drift nets ; 

 and such trawl boats shall, in such cases, keep at least 

 three miles from the boats fishing herring or mackerel. — 

 ^th January 1854. 



In Belfast Lough trawl nets were also prohibited in 

 1854 by the Commissioners of Irish Fisheries at all times 

 in that part of the Lough of Belfast comprised within a 

 straight line down from Goay Point in the county of 

 Down, to Kelroot Point in the county of Antrim. 



No nets (excepting for taking herrings) are to be used 



in the said part of the Lough of Belfast under If inch 



in the mesh, from knot to knot, under a penalty of 50s. 



for each offence, by order of the Commissioners. 



T 2 



