128 ST ANDREWS BAY. SUMMARY. 



Roche, French Inspector in Chief of Fisheries, as if it were 

 perfectly reliable \ 



The accompanying tables (I. to VII. et seq.) will demon- 

 strate that the basis on which the foregoing criticism rests is 

 not imaginary. The percentages increase (with a slight check 

 in July) to August, and then diminish to December, just as the 

 spindles formed by the animals in the pelagic fauna do, and as 

 the larval and post-larval fishes do from January to December^. 

 The argument in the Report of the Fishery Board ^, therefore, 

 for further closure so as to control the " spawning areas " rests 

 on no satisfactory basis in this connection — whatever support 

 it may have from general over-fishing. ,The conditions of the 

 two half-periods were wholly divergent, indeed, it might well 

 have happened that the differences were more pronounced than 

 those in the Blue-book. In the earlier Reports of the Board 

 such variations would have been attributed to migrations, but 

 there is no reason to think these are of any moment in this 

 case. Fishes become more lethargic in cold weather, more 

 lively in warm weather, and hence more readily come in the 

 way of capture in the latter than in the former. Consequently, 

 the statistical analysis based on the half-periods just mentioned 

 fails to be reliable, and does not prove " that there has been 

 a diminution of the more important flat fishes in the closed 

 waters, instead of an increase, as was anticipated ; and that 

 this may probably be traced to the influence of beam-trawling 

 in the open waters where the fishes spawns" 



The reporter, it is true, states that the same conclusions 



1 La culture des mers, 1898, p. 86, &c. 



2 Vide Life Histories of the Food-Fishes, Mcintosh and Masterman, pp. 

 36—56. 



3 14:th Report, iii. p. 148. 



4 One critic somewhat facetiously accuses the author of being responsible for 

 this statement in the Fishery Blue-book of the year (1893). He doubtless re- 

 served his opinion on this and other questions — the materials for decision in 

 which did not appear to him to be sufficiently complete, or were unsatisfactory. 

 As he had not then gone fully into all the details (which indeed were not then 

 in existence) he deemed it right to fall in with his five experienced and valued 

 colleagues. His critic perhaps has not observed that three other members, not 

 unknown in various connexions with line-fishermen, dissented from the views 

 he deems so important. 



