476 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



loss of a considerable part of the ventral fin and interspinous region, and, I have 

 amongst the collections of the Survey, a specimen of the Lemon Sole [Solea lascaris) 

 which exhibits a healed wound of a less severe nature. 



It is in the necessity of making short hauls only, and of avoiding weedy ground 

 that the merits of the otter trawler are conspicuous. It is obvious that a fish is less 

 liable to be injured in 20 minutes than in 4 hours. i This being the case it appears 

 that in the absence of a time restriction upon beam trawling, a measure which should 

 exclude the latter from very shallow grounds near the shore, while allowing fuU scope 

 to the use of the otter trawl, would have merits quite apart from the social side of the 

 question, hut only if combined ivith prohibition of the sale of immature fish. The 

 deeper grounds must be left to the beam trawler. They are inaccessible to any other 

 method of fishing, and our knowledge of the distribution of immature fish upon these 

 grounds is even yet so imperfect that I hesitate to go beyond the suggestions which I 

 have thrown out in the preceding pages. 



As to shrimp trawling, no such industry exists on the West Coast, and long may it 

 be absent. Whilst Fulton {op. cit. p. 206) has shown that little injury is done to 

 Plaice, &c., of \\ inch and upwards, if they are at once returned to the sea, my own 

 observations convince me that the smaller forms are destroyed by the net.^ Shrimping 

 at the margin with hand nets appears to be also unknown, and this method must be more 

 or less destructive, though I suppose a great number of the young Plaice, &c., so 

 caught would survive, if returned. It may be remarked indeed that the Shrimp 

 (Crangon) appears to have no commercial value upon the West Coast, whilst Prawns 

 (Palsemon, not Nephrops, the Dublin Bay Prawn or Norway Lobster) are only valuable 

 in places where they are required as bait for Salmon. It was somewhat remarkable to 

 find on Gorumna Island an active industry in the collection of Periwinkles for exporta- 

 tion to England, whilst the really valuable Prawns were permitted to swarm unmolested 

 iu the same pools. 



As to destructiveness of different kinds of hooks in line-fishing, our observations 

 only show that the kind which we used, viz. large cod hooks, are not destructive to 

 the immature forms of valuable fish, or at all events very little so ; that they should 

 capture a number of immature Skate and Dogfish may be well supposed, and in the 

 latter case is no matter for regret. The haddock hooks in use on this coast appear to 

 be considerably larger than those used by the line-fishermen of the East Coast of Scot- 

 land ; I do not know what size of hook is or was employed in the capture of soles, 

 which seems from the evidence given at various fishery inquiries, to have at one time 

 been a profitable branch of line-fishing in Galway and other Bays. 



While I think it may be said that a close time for marine fish is impracticable, the 

 more especially as the spawning period of the more valuable forms more or less coin- 

 cides with Lent, yet it is possible that restrictive measures of a mild nature might 

 be beneficially exercised. Thus if it be found that the bulk of the fish on any ground 

 at a particular time of the year are spawning {e.g. Soles in part of Ballinskelligs Bay 

 in March and April), that ground might well be closed to trawlers for a limited period, 

 if of small extent, whilst in the case of larger grounds, such part of it might be closed 

 as would lend itself most easily to the enforcement of the law. By this means no 



1 This is well illustrated in Fulton's recent report (9th Ann. Eep. S.F. B., 1891, 

 p. 205), but it is also shown that the mortality amongst trawled fish (especially flat 

 fish) is much less than might be supposed. 



2 I do not know whether such minute forms are found on the grounds worked by 

 Shrimp-trawlers. They are not mentioned in Fulton's lists, and the grounds upon, 

 which we made our experiments could not be said to abound in Shrimps. 



