CAPTURES BY LINERS AND TRAWLERS, 1892. 79 



about £1695 for each trawling ship, for the liner it is about 

 £49. The disproportion, again, in the trawling vessels, between 

 the first-class and the small sailing-boat, e.g. of the Clyde, is very 

 great, — the former being about £5000, the latter under £40. 



If the returns of round, flat, and other fishes landed, irre- 

 spective of herrings, sprats, sparlings, and mackerel, which do 

 not prominently bear on the present question, be considered, 

 it is found that in 1892^ the liners brought to shore 1,229,809 

 cwts. of round fishes, viz., cod, ling, torsk, saithe, whiting, 

 haddock, and conger, which realised, at 85. per cwt., £516,524 ; 

 the trawlers landed 261,200 cwts. at 10s, lid., or £143,062; 

 the liners produced 100,228 cwts. of flat-fishes, viz., flounders, 

 plaice, brill, skate, halibut, lemon-dabs, and turbot, at IO5. ^d. = 

 £53,973 ; the trawlers, 77,649 cwts. of flat fishes at 25^. 4d = 

 £98,295; while of other kinds of fishes, which include hake, 

 bream, gurnard, cat-fishes, and sillock, the liners had 61,224 

 cwts. at 4.9. 9c?. = £14,646 ; and the trawlers, 41,256 cwts. at 

 45. ^d. = £9,410. The total in each case are, for the liners 

 1,391,261 cwts. and £585,143; for the trawlers 380,105 cwts. 

 and £250,767. 



In glancing at the returns (1892) of the Board, which were 

 handed in by the late able Chairman (Mr Esslemont) to the 

 Select Committee in 1893, it would seem that one fish, viz., 

 the green cod or coal-fish, is included both amongst the round 

 fishes and the ' other kinds of fish,' in the former having the 

 name of 'saithe' (adult), and in the latter 'sillocks' (young), 

 but this is not a point of much importance in regard to the 

 results. As might be expected, the liners, and notably the 

 long-liners, have the predominance in the round-fishes, especially 

 in regard to cod, ling, and conger, the latter being apparently 

 seldom caught in a trawl on the Eastern coast. These large 

 fishes, moreover, would appear to protect themselves to a 

 considerable extent from this apparatus, especially when it is in 

 frequent use, so that it is only in water that is disturbed by 

 gales or by working at night that they are caught in numbers 



^ The full value of the labours of the Royal Commission of 1883, and especi- 

 ally of the late Lord Dalhousie, in establishing a series of proper statistics for 

 the fisheries of Scotland, cannot be over-estimated. 



