AND DECENNIAL SUMMARY. 165 



information as to the condition of the haddock in the Scotch 

 seas than those apparently in the critic's hands. Thus, we have 

 (I) the accurate data of 1884 with which to contrast the second 

 period ; (2) the indifferent, but, at any rate, unbiassed informa- 

 tion derived from the work of the " Garland " over the greater 

 part of the interval as well as the second period ; (3) other 

 observations during the period ; and (4) the condition of 

 certain areas at the present time (1898). These accurate 

 data show that the condition of the Moray Frith, as regards 

 haddocks in 1884, was barely equal to what the unenclosed 

 area beyond it was in 1898 almost on the same dates (vide 

 p. 207); that a single vessel in January, 1898, captured 60 

 miles E.N.E. from Aberdeen (and this brings it within a 

 reasonable distance of land and of the Moray Frith), no less 

 than 370 boxes of haddocks, besides other fishes in three 

 hauls of the trawl ; that very great variations in the 

 captures of the haddock by the " Garland " in the Moray 

 Frith occurred, the high and low numbers having little 

 relation to the actual abundance or scarcity, as proved, for 

 instance, by the captures of the liners in the area. The 

 same fish in St Andrews Bay is much as it was in 1884, 

 now with a high average, now with a low average, and the 

 uncertainty of this fishing is shown by the sudden variations'. 

 The reduction of the average in the second five years is 

 not due to any change in distribution, but to other causes 

 elsewhere explained'^ In the same way the condition of the 

 haddock in the Forth remains in 1895 as it was in 1886, 

 for little weight need be placed on the increase (25 per 

 haul) in the latter five years of the decade. The circum- 

 stances under which the work was carried on in the two 

 quinquennial periods were different, as explained in its 

 proper place (p. 183). 



1 Not only do the captures of haddocks vary, but the opinions of commercial 

 men ("practical men") likewise vary. It is not so long ago since one of them 

 forwarded from the deeps off the east coast a series of stomachs of large 

 haddocks distended with the spawn of the herring, as a proof of the destructive 

 tendencies of these fishes, and of the great benefit to the herring-fishery the 

 capture in the trawl of about 80 boxes of these must have been. 



2 Vide p. 125. 



