SCIENTIFIC WORK IN THE SEA-FISHERIES. 205 



Here, then, another Royal Commission was clearly not satis- 

 fied as to the supposed widespread diminution of food-fishes in 

 our waters. The Commissioners recommended the creation of a 

 Central Authority for the Fisheries of Great Britain, if not of the 

 United Kingdom ; that in the meantime the powers of the Fishery 

 Board for Scotland be increased ; and that statutory powers be 

 given to collect statistics — besides various minor recommenda- 

 tions. One of the most important steps, however, followed, viz. 

 the closure of certain inshore areas, and the carrying out of 

 experiments therein — as recommended in the scientific Report. 



As the scientific Report was the first of its kind, special 

 instructions had been drawn up for the guidance of the reporter. 

 Thus the observations were to be made on board commercial 

 trawlers upon the grounds they frequented at the different 

 seasons. Special note was to be taken of the proportional 

 quantity of immature food-fishes at various seasons ; of the 

 destruction of the spawn of food-fishes ; and of the proportion 

 of living and dead fishes brought on board. Other points were 

 the breeding of fishes, the temperature of the sea, and the 

 sedentary and pelagic fauna of the fishing-grounds. 



The scientific observations — just alluded to — in trawling 

 vessels on the various important fishing-grounds off the East 

 Coast had this not unimportant feature, viz. that they were all 

 carried out under the same eye and by the same hand on sea 

 and on land. Moreover, a simple method of dealing with the 

 food-fishes captured was adopted, viz. a division into " saleable," 

 " immature," and "unsaleable" : yet this division rested on a 

 size-limit. It has to be remembered, however, that it was not 

 the scientific observer who regulated the size of the " saleable " 

 fishes, but the fishermen, who knew the demands of the public ; 

 and the same principle was followed in reviewing the subsequent 

 experiments of the Scotch Fishery Board's ship ' Garland.' 



This scientific Report gave an account of beam-trawl fishing, 

 and the kinds and proportions of the saleable and unsaleable 

 fishes, the proportions of the living and the dead, and of the 

 immature fishes ; the development and growth of the food-fishes, 

 and the universal presence of floating eggs in all the ordinary 

 food-fishes, except the Herring and the Wolf-fish. It showed 

 that no noteworthy destruction of the spawn of food-fishes 



