52 EFFECT OF TRAWL ON EGGS AND YOUNG OF FISHES. 



these eggs were hatched, and the larval fishes were vigorous, 

 and enabled an account to be given of the development of the 

 wolf-fish {' cat-fish ' of the fishermen), to which it was found 

 the eggs pertained. At least once since the same eggs have 

 been brought up in the trawl (from the Forth) about the 

 period of hatching. It was rare to find, even in such sandy 

 bays as St Andrews, that the egg-' purses ' of the thornback 

 or other forms were brought in by the trawl, though many 

 containing embryos are stranded on the West Sands after 

 storms in October, and especially in November. Such eggs 

 are at least as frequently procured on board the liners, e.g., 

 those of the grey, starry, and sandy rays. Before the spawn- 

 ing of the sand-eel was fully elucidated ^ it was often a matter 

 of conjecture as to how the ova escaped the small trawls on 

 inshore ground ; but now the eggs are known to be adhesive — 

 probably to the sand, and thus avoid interference. 



The ordinary trawd, again, seldom or never retains such 

 active ground-fishes as the smaller rocklings, the gobies, the 

 gunnel, the eel, and the sand-eel, while the glutinous hag and 

 the lamprey are almost unknown in it. The hag-fish is, on the 

 other hand, caught abundantly by the liners when they shoot 

 their lines too near a well-known ' hole ' south-east of the Island 

 of May, and the lamprey occasionally adheres to a fishing-boat. 

 When the trawl is used on hard ground, wolf- fishes are often 

 captured, but they are as common on board the liners on the 

 same areas. Similar remarks apply to the dragonet on soft 

 ground, and perhaps it is more frequent in the trawl than on 

 the lines. 



If a trawl were to pass over masses of the spawn of the 

 herring at the moment the young fishes were escaping, the 

 ground-rope and other parts would certainly do serious injury — 

 just as a sweep-net on the rivers would to the tender young 

 salmon lying with the large yolk-sac amongst the gravel of the 

 spawning bed. A wound of the yolk-sac alone is generally 

 fatal. The extraordinary multitudes of tiny young herrings (of 

 the thickness of thread) occasionally carpeting square miles of 



1 Vide Niiith Annual Report Fishery Board for Scotland, p. 331, and Dr 

 Masterman's interesting account, Ann. Nat. Hist., Sept. 1895. 



