OEF THE EAST COAST OE SCOTLAND. 85 



creased and is increasing, while any further legislation respecting 

 it is deprecated, and that " neither government encouragement nor 

 restrictive legislation has had much effect on its herring fishery. 

 Its progress is marked by constant fluctuations from year to 

 year, but is on the whole a record of continually increasing 

 prosperity from 1809 to the present time." " The prosperity of 

 the Scotch herring fishery is entirely due to the extraordinary 

 development of the fisheries on the Aberdeenshire and Forfar- 

 shire coast ; " and " if the takes between Eraserburgh and Mont- 

 rose be deducted, the condition of the other fisheries will be 

 found to be much less satisfactory." " However little effect the 

 enormous mass of netting may have on the stock of herrings, we 

 think it reasonable to conclude that the fish may be scared by 

 these means and deterred or intercepted from entering the narrow 

 waters, and firths, and lochs of Scotland" (p. xxiii). During 

 the last few years, however, the fishing has been conducted 

 further and further out to sea, and the fisheries of the Firths 

 themselves have either decreased or become neglected. Twenty 

 years since (about 1858) * a boat carried twenty-four nets 

 made of hemp, each net forty yards long, with twenty- eight or 

 twenty-nine meshes to the yard, and ten to twelve score deep, 

 or nine hundred and sixty yards of netting, having a catching 

 surface of 3000 square yards ; while in 1878, a boat carried fifty 

 to sixty nets made of cotton, each net sixty yards long, with 

 thirty-five meshes to the yard, and eighteen score meshes deep, or 

 3300 yards of netting having a catching surface of 33,000 square 

 yards. 



From the report we may conclude : — (1) that the amount of 

 netting employed has vastly increased of late years, while the 

 size of the mesh has likewise greatly diminished; (2) that 

 generally in Scotland herrings have forsaken the inshore fishing- 

 grounds and gone further out to sea ; (3) that it does not appear 

 improbable that increased netting or such being carried on in too 

 indiscriminate a manner may have had something to do with the 

 fish retiring to deeper water ; (4) that in the Moray Firth, sprat- 

 fishing increased in 1868, when restrictive enactments were 

 repealed, while the commencement of the decrease of herrings 

 began the same year. 



The migrations of the herring have given rise to many specu- 

 lations, and is a subject that still requires much elucidation. 

 * Probably five or ten years prior to the date assigned. 



