PRESENT STATE OF LINE AND TRAWL-FISHING. 75 



moderate distance of the land ; and were the fishes to become 

 so thinned that, with all the skill and energy shown in managing 

 the ships, the returns proved unsatisfactory, trawling might 

 voluntarily disappear. There is no reliable evidence, however, 

 that before such a result would happen irreparable injury would 

 have been done to the sea-fisheries.' 



Now, at that time there were in Scotland a total of 61^ 

 trawling-vessels — of which probably about one half were 

 steamers, the other half being sailing-boats or vessels used for 

 trawling. The exact numbers cannot be obtained, but there 

 were from 12 to 20 boats used in trawling at St Andrews, 6 to 

 8 came from Broughty Ferry, 2 or 3 each from St Monans and 

 Cellardyke, and others existed in the Moray Firth. Trawling, 

 indeed, at St Andrews was an old custom, the Buckhaven 

 fishermen having introduced it early in the century, and subse- 

 quently the local fishermen carried it on more or less regularly, 

 generally trawling in September and October, and in March 

 and April, though occasionally much longer. The frequent 

 presence, however, just before the period of the Trawling 

 Commission, of 10 or 12 powerful steam -trawlers to compete 

 with them on their own ground quite altered the aspect of 

 affairs. The energy with which the steam-trawlers generally 

 worked — for trawling went on by night as well as by day, and 

 in weather unsuitable for the liners — introduced in Scotland a 

 new era into the department. Fishing was to be carried out 

 no longer by more or less independent crews, bound together 

 by blood-relationship or other ties, and whose working hours 

 were largely regulated by the weather and tides, or their own 

 convenience and necessities. Yet, their whole domestic life 

 was interwoven with the time-honoured pursuit. Their wives 

 and daughters laboriously baited the hooks and arranged the 

 lines in the baskets for ' shooting,' they gathered the ' bent '- 

 grass for separating the layers of the line, and with the sons 

 dug lob-worms or procured mussels for bait. In the olden time, 

 indeed, their wives and daughters were likewise their fish- 

 merchants, and disposed of their captures to the best advantage. 



^ The numbers are taken from the Report of the Select Committee of The 

 House of Commons, 1893, p. 396. 



