304 president's addkess. 



secuted witli a diligence and to an extent quite unprecedented 

 in past times. Larger boats, more and finer nets, more and bet- 

 ter lines, and a larger area of fishing ground, seem to be requisite 

 in order to keep up the supplies of fish." And the use of these 

 larger and better boats tends to bring about the same result in 

 another way : the fishermen are able to go right out to sea in 

 weather which, not long ago, would have kept them in-shore. 

 Mr. James Gow, the officer of the Banff district, says that, in 

 February last, for two weeks, the boats were daily at sea and 

 landing large quantities of fish, when with the same weather ten 

 years ago there would not have been a boat out in the district. 

 Testimony of this kind might be quoted ad lihitum. It can 

 scarcely be doubted, then, that fish is scarcer than it was, and 

 that this scarcity depends, in part at any rate, upon the great 

 increase of the fishing industry and the more deadly character of 

 the machinery now in use. 



But before attempting to consider any of the means which 

 might be adopted for the conservation or improvement of fisher- 

 ies, let us glance for a moment at some of the advances which 

 have recently been made in our knowledge of the life and habits 

 of fishes. First, as to the spawning and development of the ova. 

 Professors M'Intosh, G. 0. Sars, Prince, and many others have 

 within the last few years laboriously investigated these subjects, 

 and it may now be taken as certain that the spawning of most 

 of our valuable food-fishes takes place chiefly outside of terri- 

 torial waters, that the ova speedily rise towards the surface, are 

 hatched within a week or two of fertilization, and are for the 

 most part gradually drifted shorewards by the influence of cur- 

 rents. So much may be affirmed of all the flat-fishes, of the cod, 

 haddock, whiting, and many others. There are others whose 

 ova are "demersal" — or permanently attached to some stationary 

 basis ; but these may here be left out of consideration. In most 

 cases the deposition of ova takes place during the earlier months 

 of the year, and the young, when hatched, find their way or are 

 carried by currents, apart from any volition of their own, into 

 shallower waters, where their development is aided not only by 

 a greater abundance of food, but by the higher temperature of 



