474 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



crime, viz. the destruction of spawn, the trawler is wholly innocent. For the sake of 

 his net, if for no other reason, it may be supposed that he would keep clear of the 

 rough ground on which herring are known to deposit their spawn, i whilst in the case 

 of all other food-fish of importance^ (except skates), of whose reproduction we know 

 anything, the spawn floats and cannot be hurt by the trawler. In spite of this, how- 

 ever, we find a gentleman, learned in the law, prepared to prove, at an inquiry held in 

 1890, that Mackerel deposit their eggs on a sandy bottom in shallow water. Comment 

 is needless. That the beam trawl does capture a large number of fish not sexually 

 mature is undeniable, and moreover is not denied by the trawlers themselves. It 

 appears, however, that they take all possible steps, by returning the small fish to the 

 sea as soon as possible, to minimise an evil from which they must needs be the principal 

 sufferers. It would be needless recapitulation to insert here the number of immature 

 fish which were taken during the Survey. The figures are sufficiently apparent 

 in my Appendix (A) on the Result of Fishing Operations. 



Dr. Fiilton remarks, " If immature flat-fish were special in their distribution, if 

 their nurseries could be defijied as apart from the habitats of the adults, the question 

 could be easily solved by the prohibition of beam trawling in these areas." 



Unfortimately, he thinks that it is not possible, even in the case of Plaice, on the 

 East Coast of Scotland, and our evidence from the West Coast of Ireland shows that it 

 is equally impossible there. This being the case it would appear that prohibition of 

 this nature may even be dangerous, since, whilst not affording special protection to 

 immature fish, or at most only to one species, it tends, by the restriction of the trawler 

 to certain grounds, to force him to exhaust these, if exhaustible, more speedily than if he 

 were allowed to go where he pleased. Doubtless such prohibition as exists on the Irish 

 coast is intended more for the benefit of the local line-fisherman than for that of the 

 immature fish ; but the relative merits of the line-fisherman and the trawler, as apart 

 from their power of destroying young fish, is a purely social question which does not 

 enter into the scope of my remarks. I understand that in one place there exists a 

 race of line-fishermen who make their living by the capture and sale of "tongues or 

 slips," i.e. immature Sole. Surely, this is a case in which the trawler deserves protec- 

 tion from the liner, since it is on the former that we depend almost entirely for our 

 supply of large Soles. 



Prohibitive legislation has further shown a tendency, or has been invited to dis- 

 criminate between the sailing and steam beam-trawler, the action of the screw " in 

 stirring up the bottom in shallow water' ' being the principal cause of complaint on the 

 part of local fishermen. It is extremely unlikely, however, that the skipper of a steam 

 trawling vessel would risk his ship in water sufficiently shallow for the screw to have 

 any effect. Doubtless the steam trawler is more destructive, because more efficacious, 

 than the sailing trawler, but his greater powers of harm may be compensated by the 



1 Exact information (such as is given by Dr. Fulton for the East Coast of Scotland 

 in the 9th Ann. Rep. S. F. B.) is much needed as to the spawning places of Herring 

 all round the Irish Coast. If such were forthcoming, the constant disputes between 

 Trawlers and Herring-fishermen could be definitely set at rest. 



- The "Wolf-fish {Anarrhichas lupus) deposits its eggs on the ground. Wrasse, 

 which have some value upon the West Coast, have also demersal eggs, but the latter 

 are deposited amongst rocks and between tide-marks. The only fish-spawn trawled by 

 ourselves was that of the minute Double-spotted Sucker [Lepadog aster bimaculatus), 

 which on two occasions was brought up by the trawl attached to empty mollusc shells. 

 Some spawn which I was asked to examine by a trawler in Blacksod Bay proved to be 

 that of a mollusc. 



