EFFECT ON CUTTLE-FISHES. 45 



fishermen using trawls. It was only after a storm that a few 

 were occasionally procured in a trawl, but they never failed to 

 find multitudes strewn on the beach at the West Sands after a 

 severe storm, of which occurrences, indeed, zoologists have 

 frequent personal experiences. 



Many cuttle-fishes, again, are captured by the trawl, and, as 

 above mentioned, as a rule, are killed. But these are carefully 

 preserved for sale, and in certain cases form no inconsiderable 

 item in the proceeds of the fishing, for a sum of money, varying 

 from £1 to £5 or even double the amount, is paid for each box 

 of this valued bait. Further, the cuttle-fishes caught by the 

 trawl are chiefly Loligo and Ommastrephes — squids as they are 

 usually called. Now, these are pelagic or free-swimming cuttle- 

 fishes that do not necessarily fall under the bottom-fauna, 

 though, when captured, they are probably seeking their prey 

 there, or in the stratum just above it. The occurrence of 

 Eledone (a ground-form) in the trawl is less common than the 

 foregoing. Moreover, the squids are mollusks particularly 

 obnoxious in the active condition to liners, so much so that 

 advice has been asked as to how to get rid of them^ They 

 occur in such numbers now and then that the fishermen despair 

 of their catches, for the cuttle-fishes so disfigure the haddocks 

 and other fishes fixed on the hooks — by devouring the muscles 

 behind the head — as to render them unsaleable. So eager are 

 they, indeed, that they sometimes follow the hooked fishes to 

 the surface, as the lines are hauled, and are captured by a 

 hand-net. Opinions, therefore, might differ as to the disadvan- 

 tages of thinning this group of mollusks, which, when full- 

 grown, are as much destined for the nourishment of the whales 

 as the food-fishes, though they are also eaten by larger examples 

 of the latter {e.g., the cod), and in their younger stages by 

 many others. 



The case of the molluscan fauna of the bottom as food for 

 fishes in relation to the action of the trawl, however, cannot be 

 considered without the pelagic or free-swimming representa- 

 tives of the same group on the particular ground. Almost all 

 the shell-fishes living on the bottom send off pelagic young, 



1 Vide Fourth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, p. 204, 



