SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 221 



square miles of the sea were closed, and kept closed, besides 

 schemes for further closures, because — " The conclusions point to 

 the closure of the offshore areas during the spawning time, but 

 the size and precise position of the areas that should be closed 

 in relation to any given part of the territorial waters have not 

 yet been well determined ; nor indeed the situations and extent 

 of the principal breeding-grounds \" A perusal of the fore- 

 going chapters, and a close scrutiny of the tables at the end of 

 this work, it may be, will enable those who give earnest 

 attention to the subject to reach very different conclusions. 



It has also been recently stated ^ that since St Andrews 

 Bay and the Forth are "devoid of spawning-grounds" it is 

 proposed in future to conduct the experiments in the Frith of 

 Clyde and the Moray Frith, where important spawning-grounds 

 exist, and where the results of the closure will therefore be 

 probably much more marked than in the former areas. It 

 is further asserted ^ that " before the investigations of the 

 " Garland " were begun, it was believed that the food-fishes 

 propagated principally in inshore waters, and that an area like 

 the Frith of Forth was in consequence to a large extent self- 

 supporting. But it has been proved that the important food- 

 fishes do not spawn on the east coast within the territorial 

 limits, and that the territorial zone is directly dependent on 

 the spawning grounds situated in the outer seas, whence the 

 floating eggs and fry are borne by the currents." Beference, 

 however, to the Trawling Report of 1884*, shows that this was 

 clearly brought before the Royal Commission then, so that 

 instead of being new it only corroborates what had been 

 formerly pointed out. Now, what are the results of the ten 

 years' work in the Moray Frith ? They simply show that this 

 area is very much as it was in 1884, and that the closure would 

 not appear to affect it more than the open fishing, a conclusion 

 in line with the results of a scrutiny of the Board's work, and 

 independent observations elsewhere. The idea of controlling 

 the " spawning-grounds " of marine fishes with pelagic eggs 



1 lAth Annual Report, 1896, Part iii. p. 12. 



2 Uth Annual Report, S. F. B., 1896, p. 18. 



3 Ihid. p, 12. 4 p, 379^ etc. 



