74 CHANGES IN BOATS OF LINERS. 



which each boat has 100, are 60 yards long, and 18 yards deep, 

 and they are made of cotton, with 33 rows to a yard, and after 

 two years' wear, the shrinkage gives 36 in a yard. Instead of 

 manual hauling, there was first the improvement of a net 

 hauler (see Fig. adjoining) and lastly the same worked by steam. 

 The gradually increasing size of the boat rendered long hand- 

 nets necessary for capturing stray fishes over the gunwale. 

 Instead of baskets, boxes have been used for the fishes for 

 nearly a quarter of a century, the box, indeed, making its 

 appearance with the trawls and increased facility in disposing 

 of the fishes. Finally, in the most advanced towns steam-liners 

 have largely increased. 



It is interesting to notice the parallelism in the increase of 

 the nets and hooks, for while no one brings forward the enormous 

 increase of the nets as proof of the decadence of the herring, it 

 is otherwise with the increase of hooks, which, for instance, in 

 the Reports of the Fishery Board, is held to prove the diminu- 

 tion of white fishes in our seas, and the call for restrictive 

 legislation. Changes have occurred in both groups (herrings 

 and white fishes), but they are apparently not of a kind to be 

 dealt with in the manner just mentioned. 



The Present State of the Line and Tkawl Fisheries 



IN RELATION TO THE FiSHING-GrOUNDS AND THE FlSHES\ 



In 1884, under the head of ' General Remarks,' as careful a 

 survey of the situation of the fisheries in connection with both 

 line-fishing and trawl-fishing was drawn up^. In reading over 

 these remarks at the present time the position does not seem 

 to have been misunderstood ; indeed, there is little at variance 

 with the condition as now show^n by fifteen years' experiments 

 and observations. Amongst other remarks it is stated that 

 'steam-trawlers at present can only fish profitably within a 



1 Vide, the Author's 'Brief sketch of the Scottish Fisheries, 1882—1892,' 

 Dundee, 1892. 



2 Vide Report of the Royal Commissioners, pp. 377 — 380. 



